ORCHIDACEAE, Orchid Family
Perennial herbs, terrestrial, often with rhizomes or corms; roots sometimes thickened; some species nongreen; leaves solitary or alternate on the stem (or rarely opposite). sometimes all basal; flowers epigynous, bisporangiate,
solitary or in clusters; perianth zygomorpbic; sepals 3, sometimes 2 of them united; petals 3. one of them, the lip, different from the others in size and shape, sometimes spurred; carpels 3, united; ovary 1 ·loculed with 3 parietal
placentae; fertile stamens 1 or 2 (1 or more staminodes sometimes present), adnate to style and stigma and with them forming the column; pollen in pollinia; fruit a many-seeded capsule.