Leucorchis Blume (1849), not E. Meyer (1839).

Herbs, terrestrial, small, holomycotrophic. Rhizome fusiform, tuberous, fleshy, neck sometimes with a few filiform roots. Stem erect, slender, with a few scalelike sheaths near base, leafless, glabrous. Inflorescence erect, terminal, racemose, with 1 to several flowers; floral bracts small. Flowers spreading, resupinate, often ephemeral, white or pale yellowish brown; pedicel elongating in fruit. Sepals and petals connate at base and forming a short tube; dorsal sepal and petals connate for ca. 1/2 their length and forming a porrect hood; lateral sepals usually connate for more than 1/2 of their length, deflexed distally; lip adnate with column foot at base, free from sepals and petals, not spurred, entire or weakly 3-lobed; disk with 1 or more basal glands and often papillate. Column elongate, dilated and with 2 wings at apex, wings forming short, toothlike stelidia, with distinct column foot at base; anther subterminal, borne on a short filament; pollinia 4, in 2 pairs, granular-farinaceous, ecaudiculate, each pair directly attached to a sticky viscidium; rostellum erect, transverse; stigma broad, placed directly below rostellum. Capsule erect, fusiform.

About 18 species: India, S China, and Indochina to S Japan (Ryukyu Islands) and the Philippines, throughout the Malay Archipelago to Papua New Guinea, tropical Australia, and the SW Pacific islands, also in SW Africa and Madagascar; two species in China.

(Authors: Chen Xinqi (陈心启 Chen Sing-chi); Stephan W. Gale, Phillip J. Cribb)