Fls bisexual. Infl. terminal; peduncle long, sheathed with a series of alt., deciduous bracts of progressively smaller size, the lower ones empty, the upper ones each subtending and entirely enclosing a comparatively short, alternately branched, flowering lateral; smaller bracts quite scarious. Pedicels articulate just below fl. Fls ± zygomorphic. Tepals subequal, erect, forming a tube but connate only near base, c. 12-nerved, marcescent. Stamens > tepals; filaments glab., only slightly flattened, inserted in pit along back of anther; inner filaments a little longer than outer; anthers linear-oblong. Ovary superior, sessile, elongate; ovules ∞; style terete; stigma small, narrow. Fr. a long capsule, loculicidal. Seeds ∞, flattened, almost winged, black, shining. Tall, perennial, tufted plants, increasing by budding from stout rhizome. Lvs crowded in distichous fans, linear-ensiform, equitant, strongly keeled, marked by ∞, fine, close longitudinal striations and strengthened by tough bast fibres. Two spp., one endemic to N.Z., the other found also in Norfolk Id.