Annual herb ranging from erect to creeping habit.  Leaves opposite, rough on both surfaces, sessile, elliptic-lanceolate, 8 cm x 2 cm, margin serrulate. Inflorescences axillary on long stalks; flower-heads 1 cm across, florets white; achenes black, wrinkled, without pappus appendages.

Herbaceous, dioecious, climber with glabrous stem, bearing in leaf axils, large, brown, tuberculate bulbils ca 15 cm in diameter; leaves alternate, simple, cordate at base, petioles 6-14 cm long, blades broadly ovate 15-25 cm x 7-20 cm; male flowers borne on clustered spikes up to 20 cm long; female flowers borne on simple spikes 10-15 cm long; fruit a capsule oblong 2.5 cm x1.5 cm.

Annual strong-smelling weedy herb up to 1 m tall. Stems glabrous or pubescent; leaves alternate, ovate, sinuate-lobed, up to 20 cm long; flowers 6-10 cm long, erect, white or tinged with purple; fruit an ovoid capsule ca. 5 cm long, smooth or covered with prickles.

Erect, densely, tufted perennial grass. Leave blades 1 m x 5-15 mm, narrowing towards both ends, margins rough.  Flowering panicles rarely formed; inflorescence up to 60 cm long and drooping, spikes sessile, linear to linear-lanceolate.

Perennial aromatic herb 60-100 cm tall with short stem and tufted leaves. At base of stem a primary oval tuber branching to produce many rhizomes, with distinctive smell and taste, brownish and scaly on the surface and bright orange inside. Leaves uniformly green, tufted 30-50 cm x 7-8 cm, blades lanceolate acuminate, papery; inflorescence a scape, 10-15 x 5-7 cm, enclosed by leaf sheaths; flowers 5 cm long, white, thin, translucent; fruits are not produced.