Summer-green perennial. Corm small; tunic fibrous. Stem wiry, simple or occasionally branched. Leaves few, distichous, grass-like, soft to firm; veins prominent. Inflorescence simple or branched, few- to many-flowered. Flowers usually many, mostly actinomorphic, colours various, spirally and ± densely arranged on the slender scape, each within 2 membranous or chartaceous, usually brown, ovate, truncate, usually tridentate, spathe-valves; tube short or long, straight, cylindrical and slender or dilated above; lobes subequal, spreading. Stamens symmetrical. Style-branches entire, subulate or filiform. Capsule oblong to globose, thin-walled. Seeds many, small, brown, ± angled. Spp. c. 45, 1 of tropical Africa, remainder from S. Africa. Adventive spp. 2.