Description :

• Terrestrial or sometimes low-level epiphytic herbs, with or without pseudobulbs
• Leaves 2-few, sheathing at base
• Inflorescences terminal, lax or dense racemes; flowers usually yellowish green or purplish; bracts small
• Sepals spreading, free or laterals ± connate at base
• Petals very narrow
• Lip usually deflexed or recurved above erect base, simple or bilobed, margins entire or dentate, often bituberculate at base
• Gynostemium usually long and slender, incurved, often winged at apex; anther operculate; pollinia 4
• Capsule cylindrical to ellipsoid
• x = 10 (aneuploids, polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• Liparis Rich.
  • Richard: 21, 30, 38 (1817) name conserved
  • Rolfe: 8 (1912)
  • Phillips: 240 (1951)
  • Schelpe: 20 (1966)
  • Stewart et al.: 216 (1982)
  • Linder & Kurzweil: 359 (1999)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global : Species ± 250, cosmopolitan
• Southern Africa : Species 4, in northern, eastern and southwestern parts