Apostasia wallichiiR.Br.

Yellow Grass Orchid

WFO wfo-0000250068 Accepted WFO 2026-06 5 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–e · 3 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 3 times, so some figures below are different views of the same plant, taken on the same day, rather than different individuals. They are usually different parts of it: the leaf, the flower, the bark.

Apostasia wallichii, photographed by Hugo Innes
fig. a Hugo Innes, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-02-25 / obs. 180637538

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Native range 24 botanical countries

Regions where Apostasia wallichii is native: China South-Central, China Southeast, Hainan, Japan, Andaman Is., Assam, Bangladesh, Borneo, Cambodia, East Himalaya, Jawa, Laos, Malaya, Maluku, Myanmar, Nepal, New Guinea, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Sulawesi, Sumatera, Thailand, Vietnam, Queensland China South-CentralChina SoutheastHainanJapanAssamBangladeshBorneoCambodiaEast HimalayaJawaLaosMalayaMalukuMyanmarNepalNew GuineaPhilippinesSri LankaSulawesiSumateraThailandVietnamQueensland Andaman Is.
Native distribution of Apostasia wallichii, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows. Regions too small to draw at this scale are marked with a dot.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Andaman Is. AND ASIA-TROPICAL
Assam ASS
Bangladesh BAN
Borneo BOR
Cambodia CBD
East Himalaya EHM
Jawa JAW
Laos LAO
Malaya MLY
Maluku MOL
Myanmar MYA
Nepal NEP
New Guinea NWG
Philippines PHI
Sri Lanka SRL
Sulawesi SUL
Sumatera SUM
Thailand THA
Vietnam VIE
China South-Central CHC ASIA-TEMPERATE
China Southeast CHS
Hainan CHH
Japan JAP
Queensland QLD AUSTRALASIA

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Flowering 32 in flower of 34 examined

Proportion of examined Apostasia wallichii in flower, by month
Month In flower Examined Share 95% interval
Jan 7 7 100% 65% to 100%
Feb 10 10 100% 72% to 100%
Mar 6 6 100% 61% to 100%
Apr 2 2 too few examined
May 1 2 too few examined
Jun 1 1 too few examined
Jul 1 1 too few examined
Aug 0 0 too few examined
Sep 1 1 too few examined
Oct 0 1 too few examined
Nov 1 1 too few examined
Dec 2 2 too few examined

Peak flowering in Jan. Each bar is the share of Apostasia wallichii observations in which someone actually recorded the reproductive state and found the plant in flower, not the raw number of flowering records. That distinction matters: people observe plants far more in spring than in winter, so a bare count of flowering records partly measures when people go outside. Dividing by the number examined removes that. 32 of 34 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 9 months have fewer than 5 examined observations, so no proportion is drawn for them. This is still a global aggregate and not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres. Where a species has fewer than 30 flowering records we do not draw this chart at all. Computed from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Also published as 15 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Apostasia alba Rolfe
  • Apostasia curvata J.J.Sm.
  • Apostasia gracilis Rolfe
  • Apostasia lucida Blume ex Siebe
  • Apostasia nipponica Masam.
  • Apostasia papuana Schltr.
  • Apostasia stylidioides Rchb.f.
  • Apostasia stylidioides (F.Muell.) Rchb.f.
  • Apostasia wallichii subsp. nipponica (Masam.) Masam.
  • Apostasia wallichii var. nipponica (Masam.) Masam.
  • Apostasia wallichii var. seraweiensis J.J.Sm.
  • Mesodactylis deflexa Wall.
  • Mesodactylis wallichii (R.Br.) Endl.
  • Neumayera stylidioides (F.Muell.) Rchb.f.
  • Niemeyera stylidioides F.Muell.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.