Melanthiaceae

Perennial non-woody (herbaceous) plants with bulb-like or tuber-like underground stems (rhizomes), all flower parts usually divisible by 3, and leaves simple, entire, alternate and spiral or whorled, and with at least the veins arising from the base of the leaf parallel to one another.

Flowers solitary to clustered (panicle), bisexual, conspicuous and showy to small, symmetric in all directions (radially symmetric), and smooth or hairy. Sepals 3, closely resembling the petals, or green and unlike the petals. Petals 3, not strongly narrowed at the base. Sepals and petals may have a conspicuous dark gland below the middle on their inner side. Stamens 6. Carpels 3, fused, styles and stigmas each 3, ovary above the site where all of the other flower structures join. Fruit capsules that are sometimes fleshy. Seeds not black, may be flattened and sometimes winged or appendaged, or with a fleshy coating.

Leaves simple, alternate or whorled, edges smooth, linear to oval or elliptic, with or without short stalks at their base, and arising along almost the entire length of the stem, mostly crowded toward the base, or in a whorl beneath the flowers in fertile plants or at the top of the stem in plants with no flowers. In plants with 3 whorled leaves, the largest veins are parallel, with secondary veins arising from both sides of them (pinnate) and the smaller tertiary veins arranged in a net-like pattern. Stipules absent.

Some species highly poisonous.