TACCACEAE. A small natural order of perennial herbs, with tuberous or creeping rhizomes, inhabiting tropical regions and China. Flowers regular, hermaphrodite, densely umbellate at the apex of an erect, leafless scape; perianth often brown, lurid, or green above, above the ovary broadly urceolate or globose-campanulate, the tube short and broad; lobes six, biseriate, sub-equal or the inner ones broader, all connivent in a globe or the outer ones (or all) spreading; stamens six; filaments very short; anthers two-celled; ovary inferior; style short, columnar; outer bracts herbaceous or coloured; inner ones long, filiform. Fruit globose, ovoid, turbinate, or elongated, often triquetrous or six-ribbed, baccate, indehiscent or rarely at length three-valved. Leaves radical, large, petiolate, sometimes undivided and entire, occasionally variously lobed and dissected. The order consists of two genera-Schizocapsa and Tacca-and includes only about ten species.