Deciduous terrestrial orchids forming spreading clonal colonies, often densely crowded, usually with very low proportion of flowering plants. Leaf single, ground-hugging, heart-shaped or rounded, undersurface silvery green, crystalline. Racemes erect, few-flowered; peduncle longer than rachis, wiry. Flowers resupinate, small, pale-coloured, insect-like. Sepals and petals free, narrow, of similar shape and size; apical osmophore absent. Dorsal sepal wider than lateral sepals, largely free from column, sometimes fused at base. Lateral sepals and petals widely spreading or projected forwards beside labellum. Labellum attached by base to column base. Labellum lamina unlobed, conspicuous, broader and more brightly coloured than other segments, projecting forwards like landing platform. Callus narrow central plate extending nearly to labellum apex, with two prominent erect conical basal glands, each with dark apical spot (resembling eyes). Column curved, slender, prominently winged. Anther with four boomerang-shaped pollinia without viscidium.
Shrubby forest, woodland, heath and rocky outcrops, usually under shrubs and bracken in freely draining soil but sometimes in or around margins of seasonally wet areas. Often prominent in coastal habitats including sand dunes and rocky headlands.
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