Asphodelaceae

Tall non-woody clump-forming perennials with numerous long linear basal leaves and leafless stalks bearing a terminal cluster of large flowers, each lasting a single day.

Flowers arranged in an umbel or irregular corymb, brightly coloured, each widening from the base to the tip (funnel shaped), usually radially symmetrical. Sepals and petals each 3, closely resembling one another, fused into a short tube at the base, otherwise separate, spreading or curved outward at tips. Stamens 6, long, attached to the top of the flower tube. Carpels 3, ovary located above the point of attachment of the other flower parts (superior). Fruit a capsule with 3 valves and few seeds.

Leaves all basal, parallel-veined, sheathing, long, linear, soft and smooth, not evergreen, keeled.

Roots fibrous and more or less tuberous.