Orchids in the genus crown orchid are evergreen, terrestrial, sometimes mycotrophic herbs which form small clumps. They have thin, wiry stems, sometimes with a few branches. The stems have two or more thin, tough, pleated, lance-shaped to egg-shaped leaves. Crowded white, greenish or brown, sometimes resupinate flowers are arranged on the top of the stem and have the sepals and petals free from each other, or with the lateral sepals joined and surrounding the base of the labellum. The labellum is not lobed but has a pouch or spur at its base. Crown orchid is a genus of about thirty species. Crown orchid is native to Asia, Oceania, Latin America, the West Indies, Florida, and some Pacific Islands. Species in this genus are distributed across the warmer parts of both the Eastern and Western Hemispheres.