Sep and lateral pet lance-linear, similar, ascending over the lip; lip saccate, shoe-shaped, declined, narrowed to the shortly bifid summit, the distal part covered by a delicate transparent apron; column broadly oval, petaloid, overhanging the lip; anther sessile on the lower side of the column just beneath the tip, each locule with a bifid pollinium; perennial from a corm with coralloid roots, producing in autumn a single basal lf that persists through the next anthesis, and in the spring sending up a lfless scape bearing 2 or 3 sheathing bracts and at the summit a solitary, nodding, nectarless fl subtended by a linear bract. Monotypic.
Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.
