Leucocrinum

Herbs, perennial, acaulescent, glabrous, from short, deeply buried, fleshy roots. Leaves few, tufted, each tuft surrounded basally by membranous sheaths; blade linear. Inflorescences umbellike, central clusters at ground level. Flowers rather showy, fragrant; tepals 6, connate below middle, white, narrowly oblong, equal; perianth tube long, slender; limb lobes spreading; stamens 6, inserted near apex of perianth tube; filaments filiform, shorter than perianth lobes; anthers subversatile, often strongly curved or coiled after dehiscence, dehiscence introrse; ovary subterranean, 3-locular, ovoid, septal nectaries present; style filiform, elongate, 3-fid, lobes short; pedicel articulate, arising directly from rootstock, ebracteate. Fruits capsular, subterranean, obovoid, 3-angled, dehiscence loculicidal. Seeds black, angled. x = 11, 13, 14.

Molecular evidence (A. W. Meerow et al. 1999; M. F. Fay et al. 2000) indicates that Leucocrinum is most closely related to Echeandia.