genus descriptions: SSTAs

Terrestrial herb, occasionally saprophytic, with very short rhizomes, numerous fleshy roots and simple erect leafy stems. Leaves ovate or lanceolate, plicate. Inflorescence racemose; flowers usually dull reddish or greenish, pedicelled. Sepals and petals free. Lip with no spur, but with hypochile forming a nectar-containing cup; hypochile articulated to epichile by a narrow joint. Column short, flat or concave in front, with a shallow cup at apex; anther free, 2-celled, hinged at back of column apex, behind stigma and rostellum; pollinia 2, attached near rostellum apex, each longitudinally divided, caudicles absent; pollen grains in friable masses loosely bound by fine threads. Stigma broad, with large, globular rostellum placed centrally above it.

Small, inconspicuous, erect, terrestrial herbs with usually simple stem often rooting at lower nodes; rhizome simple; tubers absent. Leaves up to 6, scattered along stem, shortly petiolate, elliptic to ovate, almost completely glabrous. Inflorescence a simple terminal raceme of 8

Terrestrial herb perennating by testicular tubers. Leaves dimorphic, with ovate spreading basal leaves and loosely convoluted cauline leaves. Inflorescence an erect lax spike; bracts half as long as ovaries, green to somewhat chartaceous. Flowers small, more or less resupinate, with sepals and petals not spreading; ovary twisted. Sepals free, entire, 1-nerved. Petals more or less enclosed by sepals, 3-nerved, slightly shorter than sepals. Lip shorter than sepals and petals and enclosed by them, 3-lobed and 3-nerved; side lobes blunt and shorter than mid-lobe; spur short, straight or curved. Column short; rostellum square with a very small mid-lobe; viscidia separate and held in shallow notches in rostellum side lobes; staminodes minute; anther erect, 2-celled; stigma 2-lobed, lobes sessile, slightly convex, diverging from base.

Dwarf terrestrial, lithophytic or epiphytic herbs with creeping rhizomes or fusiform tuberous roots. Stems leafy,