Apaturia Lindley; Pachychilus Blume.

Herbs, terrestrial, with a distinct dormant period. Rhizome cylindric. Pseudobulb fleshy, cylindric or tuberlike with distinct fertile and vegetative shoots. Leaves 1 or 2, erect, linear, plicate-venose, papery, subtended by a few sterile sheaths. Inflorescence axis erect, leafless, with many brown sheaths along length, racemose; floral bracts persistent, suberect, lanceolate. Flowers subnutant, hairy; ovary hairy. Sepals subequal, not widely spreading, pubescent on both surfaces; dorsal sepal free; lateral sepals with oblique bases surrounding saccate lip base to form a blunt mentum. Petals free, linear, narrower than sepals, both surfaces pubescent; lip attached to apex of column foot, fleshy, porrect, 3-lobed in apical half, subgibbous or saccate at base but lacking a spur; disk papillose; lateral lobes erect; mid-lobe recurved at blunt apex; callus of several papillose or verrucose linear ridges from base to apex of blade. Column clavate, incurved and winged at apex, pubescent; anther cap terminal, pubescent; pollinia 8, clavate, waxy, without conspicuous viscidium and stipe; stigma transversely reniform-elliptic or dumbbell-shaped; rostellum obtuse. Capsule oblong, rostrate, ridged.

About 20 species: tropical Asia and the Malay Archipelago, N Australia, New Guinea, and New Caledonia; two species (one endemic) in China.

(Authors: Chen Xinqi (陈心启 Chen Sing-chi); Jeffrey J. Wood)