Herbs, epiphytic. Stems clustered, without pseudobulbs, erect or pendulous, slender, bilaterally flattened, with many internodes, leafy. Leaves distichous, usually twisted at base to lie in one plane, usually narrowly oblong to linear-lanceolate, narrow, rather thin, with black-or brown-edged imbricate sheaths, base sheathing and articulate. Inflorescence terminal, usually globose heads on an elongate axis, or in a panicle, surrounded by bracts, often densely many flowered, rarely reduced to a few flowers or a solitary flower. Flowers resupinate, white or yellow, occasionally reddish, small, often self-pollinating. Sepals and petals free. Lateral sepals forming a mentum containing saccate lip base. Petals narrower than sepals; lip entire or 3-lobed, saccate base divided from blade by a transverse partition, forming hypochile and epichile; hypochile saccate at base, often with callus inside. Column short or rather long, foot rudimentary; anther incumbent; pollinia 8, waxy, usually with short caudicle, commonly attached to a solitary viscidium; stigma suborbicular, concave, large; rostellum conspicuous, subtriangular.
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