Herbs, terrestrial, glabrous. Rhizome with persistent or decaying tubular scales; roots not branched, villous, with root hairs. Pseudobulb erect, rarely prostrate, with 1 or few internodes. Leaf 1 per pseudobulb, deciduous, articulate, petiolate or not, petiole not sheathing, convolute, plicate or not, glabrous; blade elliptic to (ob)ovate, base decurrent along petiole, margin straight, undulate to crenulate. Inflorescence an erect raceme arising heteranthous on a leafless shoot or lateral from base of pseudobulb, often alternating with fertile shoots; peduncle with few internodes; scales tubular; floral bracts persistent. Flowers resupinate, open simultaneously. Sepals and petals ovate, elliptic, or obovate to linear, entire; lateral sepals decurrent on column foot when present. Lip immobile, entire or 3-lobed, with or without spur, saccate; keels (2 or)3-9. Column straight, with narrow seams that continue onto column foot when present; column foot absent or inconspicuous (rarely long), flat or swollen, without spur; anther cap with 2 thecae, usually 4-locular; pollinia 8, rarely 6 in (3 or)4 pairs, subequal, hard, caudicles present, stipe and viscidium absent. Capsule ellipsoid.
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Evergreen terrestrial orchids with crowded, slender, 1-noded, fleshy pseudobulbs. Leaf 1 per pseudobulb, petiolate, smooth or plicate. Inflorescence racemose, few-flowered, several flowers usually open at once, borne on apex of new leafless shoot. Peduncle much longer than rachis. Sepals and petals free, of similar size and shape. Base of lateral sepals fused to column foot (if present). Labellum either with or without basal spur; in those species with a basal spur the labellum is fixed to anterior base of column; in those species without a basal spur the labellum is motile and hinged to apex of short column foot. Labellum 3-lobed. Callus with prominent ridges. Column slender, incurved, with or without short basal foot.
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