Erect, caespitose, epiphytic herbs up to about 3 dm. tall, normally less. Stems slender to thickened, simple or branched, covered with amplexicaul leaf-sheaths, becoming naked with age. Leaves 4-13 cm. long and 0.5-4.5 cm. broad, elliptic to lanceolate to lanceolate-oblong, obtuse or acute, those on branches smallest and narrowest. Inflorescences either terminal or lateral or both,, the lateral ones originating opposite the base of a leaf, simple or paniculate. Flowers greenish or whitish and mottled with red or purple. Dorsal sepal 8-14 mm. long and 3-6 mm. broad, oblong-lanceolate, obtuse or acute, cucullate, fleshy, verrucose to mammillate dorsally, the mid-nerve prolonged into a subterminal apicule. Lateral sepals similar but elliptic-oblong and usually oblique. Petals 8-11 mm. long and 2-4 mm. broad, oblanceolate, obtuse. Lip unguiculate, the claw adnate to the column, fleshy or callus-thickened; lamina 7-13 mm. long and about as broad, prominently 3-lobed; lateral lobes spreading, originating about opposite the apex of the column, oblong, oblique, obtuse, 3-5 mm. long, rarely lobulate or dentate; mid-lobe bilobulate, emarginate, the lobules divergent to explanate, rarely dentate, obtuse; disc usually provided with a low callus-thickening which extends from the claw to the isthmus between the lateral lobes and usually is terminated by two mammillate processes, rarely continuous from base to apex,-often obscurely verrucose. Column provided with 2 thin stelidia at the apex over the anther.
Home