PLANT: Perennial herbs with fibrous roots, rhizomes, bulbs or corms. LEAVES: sessile, basal or cauline, linear, basally sheathing. INFLORESCENCE: cymes, spikes or solitary flowers, commonly with bracts. FLOWERS: usually actinomorphic; perianth petaloid, 6‑parted, distinct or connate at the base; stamens 3, distinct or connate, or adnate to outer tepals; pistil 3‑carpelled, the ovary inferior, 3‑loculed, the style filiform or 3‑branched, the branches filiform or flattened and petaloid. FRUITS: capsules, loculicidally dehiscent. SEEDS: few to many. NOTES: 80 genera, 1500 spp., worldwide, especially Africa. Many cultivated: Iris, Crocus, Gladiolus, Freesia. REFERENCES: Cholewa, Anita F. and Douglass M. Henderson. 1994. Iridaceae J. Ariz. - Nev. Acad. Sci. Volume 27(2), 215.