The individual flowers generally last for only one to two days and have white to yellowish green or brown tepals that are either free or joined into a basal tube.

[3] A formal description of genus Drimia first appeared in the fourth edition of Species Plantarum, published in 1799, authored by Carl Ludwig Willdenow.

[1][4] When describing Drimia elata (the type species of the genus) in a work published in 1797, Jacquin said that he was unable to assign it to one of the known genera, and so constructed a new one.

The name is derived from the Greek δριμεῖα drimeia, the feminine form of the adjective δριμύς drimys meaning "bitter" or "acrid", referring to the root.

[3] The genus Litanthus was for a long time monotypic, with the sole species L. pusillus, before in 2000 Goldblatt and Manning included it in Drimia.

The Litanthus group is characterized by one- or occasionally two-flowered inflorescences with drooping tubular flowers whose tepals are united at the base for more than half their length.

The Schizobasis group is distinguished by its well branched, thin-stemmed inflorescence and small, filiform leaves that are found only in seedlings, disappearing in mature plants.