Herbs, terrestrial, small to large, slender to robust. Tubers palmately lobed, fleshy, neck with several slender roots. Stem usually erect, terete, with tubular sheaths near base and several leaves above, glabrous. Leaves cauline, alternate, green, with purple spots or not spotted, glabrous, base attenuate into clasping sheath. Inflorescence erect, terminal, racemose; rachis densely several to many flowered; floral bracts lanceolate to ovate, foliaceous, often exceeding flowers. Flowers resupinate, secund or not, rose-purple, violet, yellow, greenish yellow, or rarely white, small to medium-sized; ovary twisted, cylindric-fusiform, glabrous. Sepals free, glabrous; dorsal sepal erect, often concave; lateral sepals spreading or reflexed, rarely connivent. Petals often connivent with dorsal sepal and forming a hood; lip simple, entire or 3-or 4-lobed, spurred at base; spur cylindric, conic, or saccate, much shorter than to subequal in length to ovary. Column stout; anther erect, base firmly adnate to apex of column, with 2 parallel or divergent locules; pollinia 2, granular-farinaceous, sectile, each attached to a viscidium by a slender caudicle; each viscidium enclosed in a sticky globe, both globes enclosed in a common bursicle formed by folding of rostellar arms; rostellum slightly protruding, with 2 arms; stigma lobes confluent, concave, beneath rostellum; auricles 2, usually prominent, on each side of column. Capsule erect.
More
Herbs, perennial, terrestrial, rather succulent, glabrous. Roots from base of stem fascicled tuberoids, usually palmately divided with 2–5 lobes, fleshy. Stems leafy. Leaves several, ascending to recurved, not enfolded around spike, with or without purplish spots; base sheathing in proximal leaves, distal leaves bractlike, not sheathing. Inflorescences terminal, spikes; floral bracts foliaceous, prominent. Flowers few to many, resupinate; dorsal sepal, sometimes lateral sepals, and petals connivent, forming hood distal to lip; petals ± obliquely dilated basally; lip 3-lobed, base spurred, margins occasionally entire, nectarless; pollinaria 2, each with 1 pollen mass; viscidia within single 2-lobed bursicle; stigma reniform or obcordate, concave with median ridge, hidden behind bursicle. Fruits capsules, ascending, ellipsoid.
Home
