Description: Tufted perennial herbs, roots tuberous, or fleshy-fibrous or fibrous with or without tubers.
Leaves crowded at base of stem, linear.
Inflorescence paniculate; axis simple or branched, bracteate; lower bracts leaf-like, upper minute; flowers irregularly clustered, pedicellate. Tepals subequal, shortly fused, 3-veined, spirally twisted after flowering, ultimately falling, blue or rarely white. Stamens 6, attached to perianth basally; filaments ± slender, papillose, alternately long and short; anthers introrse, dehiscing by longitudinal slits. Ovules 2 per loculus; style filiform; stigma capitate, minute.
Fruit a capsule, ± 3-lobed, tardily dehiscent; seeds ± globose, black.
Distribution and occurrence: World: c. 11 species, southern Africa, New Guinea & Australia. Australia: 8 species (7 species endemic), all States.
Caesia is sometimes placed in the family Hemerocallidaceae.
Text by S. McCune & D. W. Hardin
Taxon concept:
| | Key to the species | |
| 1 | Inflorescence axis branched; lower branches subtended by leaf-like bracts more than 10 cm long | 2 |
| Inflorescence axis unbranched, or if branched the lower branches subtended by leaf-like, linear or subulate bracts less than 10 cm long | 3 |
| 2 | Roots fleshy-fibrous, or slender and tuberous but without distinct distal tubers; seeds granulate with scattered tubercles | Caesia parviflora |
| Roots fleshy-fibrous with broadly fusiform tubers distally; seeds colliculate, often with irregularly scattered tubercles
Back to 1 | Caesia calliantha |
| 3 | Inflorescence axis unbranched | 4 |
| Inflorescence axis branched
Back to 1 | 5 |
| 4 | Inflorescence spreading-decumbent | Caesia alpina |
| Inflorescence erect or ascending
Back to 3 | Caesia calliantha |
| 5 | Plant less than 10 cm high; tepals less than 5 mm long; seeds granulate without tubercles or pustules | Caesia alpina |
| Plant usually more than 15 cm high; tepals more than 5 mm long; seeds granulate and regularly tuberculate
Back to 3 | Caesia parviflora |
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