Spider wort Family. Perennial or annual leafy herbs with regular or irregular perfect and often showy flowers in cymes, commonly subtended by spathe-like or leafy bracts. Perianth of 2 series; a calyx of mostly 3 persistent sepals, and a corolla of mostly 3 membranous and deciduous or fugacious petals. Stamens mostly 6, hypogy-nous, rarely fewer, all similar and perfect or 2 or 3 of them different from the others and sterile; filaments filiform or somewhat flattened; anthers 2-celled, mostly longitudinally dehiscent. Ovary superior, sessile or-very nearly so, 2-3-celled; ovules 1 or several in each cell, anatropous or half anatropous; style simple; stigmas terminal, entire or obscurely 2-3-lobed. Seeds solitary or several in each cell of the capsule. Capsule 2-3-celled, loculicidally 2-3-valved. Embryo small. Endosperm copious.