61. Cyrtopodium R. Brown, Hortus Kew. 5: 216. 1813.
[Greek kyrtos, curved swelling, and podium, foot, probably alluding to conspicuous column foot]
Gustavo A. Romero-González
Herbs, terrestrial or epiphytic, cespitose. Stems pseudobulbs, ovate-fusiform. Leaves deciduous, distichous; blade articulate, plicate, leathery, apex acuminate. Inflorescences from base of pseudobulbs, racemes to panicles, erect; floral bracts large, showy, margins undulate. Flowers resupinate, showy; sepals and petals membranaceous, margins often conspicuously undulate; lip adnate to apex of column foot, subsessile to conspicuously clawed, conspicuously 3-lobed, disc with tuberculate, cristate, or verrucose callus; column slightly arcuate, sometimes nearly club-shaped, semiterete, forming conspicuous foot; anther terminal, incumbent, operculate, imperfectly 2-locular; pollinia 2, yellow, nearly triangular, sulcate, cartilaginous, attached to short, trowel-shaped viscidium. Fruits capsules, pendent, pear-shaped.
Species 15–30 (2 in the flora): tropical and subtropical regions, North America, West Indies, Central America, South America.
