Medicinally as a treatment for burns and skin ailments and as ornamentals. Actinomorphic or zygomorphic and perfect.
Inflorescence often showy and as terminal panicles, racemes or spikes.
Fruit a berry or loculicidal capsule. Seeds many and flattened or winged with endosperm present. Placentation is axile. Leaves simple and sessile with prickly margins and alternate, clustered at the base of the stem in rosettes. Stipules are lacking.