Description from Flora of China
Herbs, terrestrial, small to medium-sized. Tuber subspherical to ellipsoid, fleshy. Stem erect, abbreviate, with 1 short sheathing cataphyll at base and 1 solitary leaf (rarely 2 leaves). Leaf basal, usually appressed to substrate, green, often with purple markings, cordate to ovate-cordate, directly sheathing stem at base, fleshy, glabrous. Inflorescence elongate, with 2-4 scattered sterile bracts and a few to several flowers in a lax to subdense terminal raceme, glabrous; floral bracts lanceolate, usually shorter than ovary. Flowers resupinate, purple, purplish red, pink, or nearly white, medium-sized; pedicel and ovary often slightly arcuate, narrowly cylindric-fusiform, glabrous. Sepals free; dorsal sepal often erect; lateral sepals spreading, oblique. Petals usually connivent with dorsal sepal and forming a hood over column, slightly smaller than sepals; lip spreading, spurred at base, 3-lobed or entire, adaxially finely papillate, with 2 prominent ridges below mouth of spur; spur cylindric to conic, rather long, often papillate inside. Column stout; anther hoodlike, with 2 divergent locules and a broad connective; rostellum conspicuous, to 2 mm, protruding between anther cells, lateral lobes fleshy, apically infolded; pollinia 2, granular-farinaceous, sectile, attached to viscidia via long caudicles; viscidia cymbiform, enclosed by folded apices of rostellum lateral lobes; stigma lobes confluent, slightly concave, posterior to rostellum; auricles 2, one on either side of anther base. Capsule narrowly ellipsoid.
Incompletely known species
Hemipilia forrestii Rolfe, Notes Roy. Bot. Gard. Edinburgh 8: 27. 1913.
长距舌喙兰 chang ju she hui lan
Hemipilia forrestii var. macrantha Handel-Mazzetti.
Plants ca. 20 cm tall. Tubers ellipsoid, 3-4(-5) cm. Stem 1-leaved. Leaf ovate-oblong, ca. 4.5 × 2.5 cm, base subcordate, apex acute. Inflorescence ca. 17 cm; rachis ca. 6 cm, several flowered; floral bracts lanceolate or ovate-lanceolate, 10-12 mm, apex acuminate. Flowers rose-purple; pedicel and ovary ca. 20 mm. Dorsal sepal erect, cymbiform, ovate-oblong, ca. 6 mm, apex obtuse; lateral sepals ovate, oblique, concave, ca. 12 mm, apex subobtuse, recurved. Petals ovate-oblong, ca. 5 mm, apex obtuse; lip sessile, quadrate-obovate, ca. 13 × 10 mm, margin irregularly crenate, apex truncate; spur attenuate, ca. 30 mm, slightly incurved, apex subacute. Column ca. 5 mm; rostellum ovate-oblong, ca. 3 mm. Fl. Sep.
● Crevices on rocky slopes; 1200-3000 m. SW Sichuan, SE Xizang, NW Yunnan.
About ten species: from Nepal, through Bhutan and S China, to Myanmar and Thailand; seven species (five endemic) in China; one additional species (endemic) is incompletely known.
(Authors: Chen Xinqi (陈心启 Chen Sing-chi); Stephan W. Gale, Phillip J. Cribb)