Compsoa D. Don, nom. rej.

Herbs perennial, with short or sometimes long and creeping rhizomes. Stems usually erect or ascending, sometimes branched distally. Leaves cauline, alternate, subsessile, usually ± amplexicaul. Inflorescence a thyrse or thyrsoid, rarely a raceme. Flowers bisexual, solitary, showy. Perianth campanulate or trumpet-shaped. Tepals 6, free, white or yellow with purplish spots, usually recurved or reflexed distally, usually caducous; outer ones saccate or shortly spurred. Stamens 6, inserted at base of tepals; filaments slightly flattened, proximally connivent to form a short tube; anthers dorsifixed, versatile, extrorse. Ovary 3-loculed; ovules many per locule. Style columnar; stigmatic lobes 3, spreading, apically cleft. Fruit a capsule, broadly cylindric, 3-angled, septicidal. Seeds many, ovate to orbicular, flattened, small.

About 18 species: from the Himalayas to E Asia; nine species (six endemic) in China.

(Authors: Chen Xinqi (陈心启 Chen Sing-chi); Hiroshi Takahashi)