Henningia Karelin & Kirilov.

Herbs perennial, with vertical, short, stout rhizome, surrounded at neck by leaf bases and sometimes also fibers from old, disintegrated leaf bases. Roots numerous, long, thickened, fleshy. Leaves several, all basal, tufted, linear. Scape simple, erect, exceeding leaves, with sterile bracts distally and a terminal raceme. Raceme usually densely many flowered, usually elongate in fruit; bracts membranous, margin often minutely serrulate, fimbriate, or ciliate, apex often long filiform acuminate. Flowers bisexual, 1 per bract axil, pedicellate; pedicel articulate or not. Perianth campanulate, tubular, or cupular; segments 6, free or connate at base, with 1, 3, or 5 veins. Stamens 6, often exserted; filaments filiform or dilated toward base; anthers dorsifixed near base, base with 2 lobes to 0.5 mm. Ovary 3-loculed; seeds several per locule. Style filiform, long, often conspicuously persistent in fruit; stigma very small. Fruit a capsule, globose or subglobose, loculicidal. Seeds irregularly 3-angled, sometimes winged along angles.

About 45 species: C and W Asia, extending E to China and W to Turkey and Ukraine; four species (one endemic) in China.

(Authors: Chen Xinqi (陈心启 Chen Sing-chi); Nicholas J. Turland)