Herbs, terrestrial, small to medium-sized. Rhizome creeping, usually short; roots fibrous to fleshy. Stem erect, terete, with tubular sheaths near base. Leaves basal or cauline, 1 or 2, alternate, rarely subopposite, base contracted into clasping sheath. Inflorescence erect, terminal, racemose, laxly 1-to several flowered, glabrous; floral bracts conspicuous, lanceolate to ovate, leaflike. Flowers resupinate, secund or not, showy, small to medium-sized; ovary twisted, pedicellate, glabrous. Sepals free, glabrous; dorsal sepal erect, often concave; lateral sepals and petals usually connivent with dorsal sepal and forming a hood; lip simple or obscurely 3-lobed, spurred at base or rarely spurless. 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; stigma lobes confluent, concave, beneath rostellum; rostellum slightly protruding, with 2 arms; auricles 2, winglike, on each side of column. Capsule erect.
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Herbs, perennial, scapose, rather succulent. Roots not tuberously thickened, fascicled, fleshy. Stems bractless proximal to inflorescence, conspicuously angled. Leaves [1–]2, basal, spreading, conduplicate, gradually narrowed to sheathing petioles; blade oblance-ovate to obovate, elliptic, or suborbiculate, apex rounded-obtuse. Inflorescences terminal, solitary, racemose spikes; bracts large, foliaceous. Flowers 2–15, resupinate, showy; lip protruding downward from hood formed by sepals and enclosing petals, base produced into spur; pollinaria 2; pollinia 2; viscidia within single 2-lobed bursicle; stigma concave, hidden behind bursicle. Fruits capsules, erect.
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