| 1. | Grass-like geophytic herbs, flowers blue, radiate, pendent, with markedly bicoloured filaments | Caesia | |
| Geophytic herbs, succulents or annuals, flowers never blue, radiate to tubular, filaments uniformly coloured | 2 | ||
| 2. | Large succulents or perennial herbs with evergreen rosettes of many leaves, inflorescence a tall densely flowered raceme of pink, red or orange tubular flowers | 3 | |
| Short to medium geophytic herbs, perennials, succulents or annuals, leaves evergreen or not, inflorescence various but flowers always radiate | 4 | ||
| 3. | Leaves highly succulent, rounded below | Aloe | |
| Leaves herbaceous, strongly keeled | Kniphofia | ||
| 4. | Filaments densely long hairy, flowers yellow to cream | Bulbine | |
| Filaments glabrous and smooth to scabrid, flowers white to pinkish | 5 | ||
| 5. | Filaments scabrid, leaves hairy to glabrous, ovules 2-16 per locule | Trachyandra | |
| Filaments smooth, leaves glabrous, ovules 2 per locule | Bulbinella |
Notes:
