Bulbophyllum odoratissimum(Sm.) Lindl. ex Wall.

WFO wfo-0000568969 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Bulbophyllum odoratissimum, photographed by Thibaud Aronson
fig. a Thibaud Aronson, CC BY-SA 4.0 / 2015-05-05 / obs. 172957620
Bulbophyllum odoratissimum, photographed by Gerard Chartier
fig. b Gerard Chartier, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 102245791
Bulbophyllum odoratissimum, photographed by Gerard Chartier
fig. c Gerard Chartier, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 102245775
Bulbophyllum odoratissimum, photographed by Gerard Chartier
fig. d Gerard Chartier, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 102245782
Bulbophyllum odoratissimum, photographed by Gerard Chartier
fig. e Gerard Chartier, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 102245756
Bulbophyllum odoratissimum, photographed by Gerard Chartier
fig. f Gerard Chartier, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 102245741
Bulbophyllum odoratissimum, photographed by Gerard Chartier
fig. g Gerard Chartier, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 102245726
Bulbophyllum odoratissimum, photographed by Gerard Chartier
fig. h Gerard Chartier, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 102245716

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 14 botanical countries

Regions where Bulbophyllum odoratissimum is native: China South-Central, China Southeast, Tibet, Andaman Is., Assam, Bangladesh, Cambodia, East Himalaya, India, Laos, Myanmar, Nepal, Thailand, Vietnam China South-CentralChina SoutheastTibetAssamBangladeshCambodiaEast HimalayaIndiaLaosMyanmarNepalThailandVietnam Andaman Is.
Native distribution of Bulbophyllum odoratissimum, 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
Cambodia CBD
East Himalaya EHM
India IND
Laos LAO
Myanmar MYA
Nepal NEP
Thailand THA
Vietnam VIE
China South-Central CHC ASIA-TEMPERATE
China Southeast CHS
Tibet CHT

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.

Where it actually grows measured, from 30 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 3.1 °C 21.9 °C 21.9 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 23.7 °C 31.2 °C 31.2 °C
Annual rainfall 1,981 mm 4,182 mm 4,182 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 78 mm 133 mm 133 mm

It is found where winters are cool but frost is light or absent. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 30 research-grade observations of Bulbophyllum odoratissimum that carry a coordinate, and this is the range those places actually span. The 5th and 95th percentiles are used rather than the minimum and maximum, because a single cultivated specimen in a heated conservatory should not widen a tropical plant's range to the Arctic.

This is not a hardiness zone. A USDA zone is the average annual extreme minimum temperature. The figure above is the mean daily minimum of the coldest month, which is a different quantity and is typically far warmer. Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.

Also published as 13 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.

  • Bulbophyllum congestum Rolfe
  • Bulbophyllum hyacinthiodorum W.W.Sm.
  • Bulbophyllum odoratissimum (Sm.) Lindl.
  • Bulbophyllum trichocephalum (Schltr.) Tang & F.T.Wang
  • Bulbophyllum trichocephalum var. capitatum Lucksom
  • Bulbophyllum trichocephalum var. racemosum (N.P.Balakr.) Lucksom
  • Bulbophyllum trichocephalum var. wallongense Agrawala, Sabap. & H.J.Chowdhery
  • Cirrhopetalum trichocephalum Schltr.
  • Phyllorchis odoratissima (Sm.) Kuntze
  • Phyllorkis odoratissima (Sm.) Kuntze
  • Stelis caudata D.Don
  • Stelis odoratissima Sm.
  • Tribrachia odoratissima (Sm.) Lindl.

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. 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.