Plants terrestrial, erect, 13-100 cm. Leaves scattered along stem and gradually reduced distally, or rarely grouped toward base and abruptly reduced to bracts; blade wide-spreading to ascending, elliptic to lanceolate, 7-20 × 2-5 cm. Inflorescences: floral bracts spreading to appressed, lanceolate, 8-50 × 2-12 mm. Flowers widely diverging, not showy; sepals green; dorsal sepal deeply concave, forming hood over column, 4-7 × 4-5 mm; lateral sepals wide-spreading, 5-9 × 4-5 mm; petals yellowish, oblong-quadrangular, 3-5 × 1-2 mm, lateral lobe greatly reduced, petals appearing auriculate; lip yellowish green, linear to linear-oblong, 6-12 × 3-4 mm, lateral lobes greatly reduced, middle lobe appearing hastate-auriculate; spur cylindric to prominently clavate, slender, 1.3-2.8 mm; ovaries 2 cm. Capsules on prominent pedicel, ascending, 8-19 × 4-10 mm.

Flowering Sep--Feb. Dry to wet forests, forested swamps, and thickets; 0--80 m; Fla.; Mexico; West Indies; Central America.