Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Small to large, epiphytic, lithophytic, rarely terrestrial herbs, +/- with conspicuous rhizomes.

Stems: Stems erect, pendent, or occasionally climbing, usually thickened into short pseudobulbs or without pseudobulbs and stems slender, reed-like.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Alternate, arising at apex of pseudobulbs or 1 to several alternate along the length of the reed-like stems. Blades usually coriaceous, flattened, conduplicate, or terete (cylindrical). Margins entire. Veins parallel. Petioles absent. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers terminal or rarely axillary, in erect or pendent, racemose or paniculate inflorescences or solitary. Flowers bisexual (perfect). Sepals distinct, spreading, somewhat similar in shape, often linear-lanceolate or elliptic. Petals distinct, spreading, often narrower than sepals; labellum larger than other petals, adnate to column basally or nearly to apex, entire or 3-lobed, margins entire, undulate, or irregularly fimbriate. Stamen 1, adnate to and surrounding the style forming a column; column usually long, slender, unappendaged or conspicuously winged; anther terminal, deciduous. Pollinia 4, hard and waxy, with unappendaged caudicles. Ovary inferior, 3-carpellate; stigma small, unlobed.

Fruit: Capsules.

Ploidy:

Habitat:

Elevation Range: