We study
$K$ -orbits in
$G/P$ where
$G$ is a complex connected reductive group,
$P\,\subseteq \,G$ is a parabolic subgroup, and
$K\,\subseteq \,G$ is the fixed point subgroup of an involutive automorphism
$\theta$ . Generalizing work of Springer, we parametrize the (finite) orbit set
$K\,\backslash \,G/P$ and we determine the isotropy groups. As a consequence, we describe the closed (resp. affine) orbits in terms of
$\theta$ -stable (resp.
$\theta$ -split) parabolic subgroups. We also describe the decomposition of any
$(K,\,P)$ -double coset in
$G$ into
$(K,\,B)$ -double cosets, where
$B\,\subseteq \,P$ is a Borel subgroup. Finally, for certain
$K$ -orbit closures
$X\,\subseteq \,G/B$ , and for any homogeneous line bundle
$\mathcal{L}$ on
$G/B$ having nonzero global sections, we show that the restriction map
$\text{re}{{\text{s}}_{X}}\,:\,{{H}^{0}}\,\left( G\,/\,B,\,\mathcal{L} \right)\,\to \,{{H}^{0}}\,\left( X,\,\mathcal{L} \right)$ is surjective and that
${{H}^{i}}\,\left( X,\mathcal{L} \right)\,=\,0$ for
$i\,\ge \,1$ . Moreover, we describe the
$K$ -module
${{H}^{0}}\left( X,L \right)$ . This gives information on the restriction to
$K$ of the simple
$G$ -module
${{H}^{0}}\,\left( G\,/\,B,\mathcal{L} \right)$ . Our construction is a geometric analogue of Vogan and Sepanski’s approach to extremal
$K$ -types.