Family: Commelinaceae

Habit: Herbs, terrestrial, scandent, or climbing.

Branch: Stems jointed, often rooting at nodes.

Leaves: Leaves simple, alternate, spirally or distichously arranged along stem, the base sheating the stems, the lamina margins entire, the secondary venation parallel; cobweb-like fibers visible upon tearing leaf or petiole.

Inflorescence: Inflorescence terminal or axillary, a thyrse composed of cincinni or a solitary cincinni, sometimes with a subtending, sheathing bract.

Flowers: Flowers bisexual, actinomorphic or zygomorphic; sepals 3, free; petals 3, sometimes unequal, often clawed at base, free or fused into tube below, blue, violet or white, ephemeral; stamens six in two whorls of 3, some of them sterile or reduced, filaments often pubescent; ovary superior, 3-locular, placentation axile, the style simple, the stigma capitate or 3-lobed.

Fruit: Fruit a loculicidal capsule or sometimes fleshy and indehiscent.

Seeds: Seeds one to many per fruit, sometimes arillate.