Disperis Sw.

Erect mostly small terrestrial herbs arising from small tubers and in the Flora area usually growing in very shallow soil or leaf-mould in forest. Stems with 1-several sheathing scale-leaves (cataphylls) at the base. Leaves 1-few, alternate or opposite, rarely almost obsolete. Flowers small, mostly under 2.5 cm. long, white, yellow, green, pink or magenta, solitary or in several-many-flowered racemes; bracts leaf-like. Dorsal (intermediate) sepal united with the petals to form a structure which varies from an almost flat limb to an elongate spur; lateral sepals each with a conspicuous spur or pouch near the inner margin (lacking in one South African species). Petals variously shaped, often falcate, obliquely acute or lobed at the apex, sometimes auriculate at the base. Lip remarkably modified, its claw joined to the face of the column and ascending above it, variously curving into the spur if present, often dilated into a smooth or papillate, straight or reflexed limb and usually bearing a simple or 2-lobed appendage which varies greatly in shape from species to species. Column erect, mostly stout; rostellum large, membranous, 2-lobed, produced in front into 2 rigid cartilaginous arms (fitting into the lateral sepal-pouches when in bud) holding the glands of the pollinia at their apices; anther-bearing part of column horizontal or ascending; anther-loculi distinct, parallel, ± approximate; pollinia-granules secund in a double row on the margins of the flattened caudicles which curl up in a spiral on removal; staminodes present in some species; stigma 2-lobed, the lobes situated on either side of the adnate claw of the lip. Capsule cylindrical or ovoid, ribbed.