Gastrodia

Terrestrial, saprophytic herbs without leaves or chlorophyll. Rhizome tuberous, elongated, bulky and filled with starch, nodes bearing scale leaves. Stem erect or drooping at tip; sheathing scales loose, very obtuse, shortly pointed, crowded at base, distant above. Flowers pedicellate, with labellum at top, in loose, few-many-flowered racemes; subtending bracts short, stiff and membranous. Perianth tubular, with 5 fleshy lobes, slightly split between lateral sepals (on upper side); tube pouched beneath labellum; petal lobes small and just within mouth of tube; sepal and petal lobes obtuse, margin crisped. Labellum mobile on stalk, included in tube, joined to pouched part of tube, more or less oblong, slightly shorter than rest of perianth, with blunt point, obscurely 3-lobed, lateral lobe margins upturned; callus long, running down middle of mid-lobe, margins undulate and irregularly lacerated. Column erect, elongated, narrowly winged.