Orchidantha N.E.Br.

Perennial, glabrous herbs without aerial stem, often tufted from a horizontal or vertical, sympodial rhizome bearing scale-like leaves. Leaves distichous, glabrous, eligulate, base sheathing, petiole well-defined, lamina entire, lanceolate, dorsiventral, enrolled in bud; venation pinnate-parallel with the secondary veins emerging from the prominent main vein at narrowly acute angles and regularly connected by fine transversal veins (conspicuous in dried material, but not in living plants). Inflorescence dense or lax, consisting of irregularly branching monochasial cymes. Flowers bracteate, bisexual, epigynous, with the ovary prolonged into a solid extension. Sepals (outer tepals) 3, sub-equal, narrow, fused basally into a tube. Petals (inner tepals) 3, very unequal, the two lateral small, narrow, the median large, forming a variously shaped labellum. Stamens 5, free from each other, the upper median reduced; filaments short, adnate to the base of the petals; anthers tetrasporangiate, introrse, opening by long slits, apically terminated by a short connective tip. Gynoecium of 3 fused carpels, with septal nectaries and axile placentae; style elongate, widening apically; stigmatic lobes 3, large, simple undivided or flattened, laciniate-fimbriate, wet. Ovules numerous, anatropous, bitegmic, crassi-nucellate. Fruit a dry, loculicidal, elongate capsule terminated by a beak formed by the proximal part of the ovary extension. Seeds numerous, globose, hairy, endospermous, with a lacerate aril and an operculum opposite the radicle.