Calanthe davidiiFranch.

WFO wfo-0000762550 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 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.

Calanthe davidii, photographed by Jacy Chen
fig. a Jacy Chen, CC BY 4.0 / 2021-03-21 / obs. 129762484
Calanthe davidii, photographed by Jacy Chen
fig. b Jacy Chen, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 135922256
Calanthe davidii, photographed by Jacy Chen
fig. c Jacy Chen, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 135948894
Calanthe davidii, photographed by Jacy Chen
fig. d Jacy Chen, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 129762518
Calanthe davidii, photographed by Jacy Chen
fig. e Jacy Chen, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 135922303
Calanthe davidii, photographed by Jacy Chen
fig. f Jacy Chen, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 129762563
Calanthe davidii, photographed by Jacy Chen
fig. g Jacy Chen, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 135922210
Calanthe davidii, photographed by Jacy Chen
fig. h Jacy Chen, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 129762625

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 11 botanical countries

Regions where Calanthe davidii is native: China North-Central, China South-Central, China Southeast, Japan, Taiwan, Tibet, Assam, East Himalaya, Nepal, Vietnam, West Himalaya China North-CentralChina South-CentralChina SoutheastJapanTaiwanTibetAssamEast HimalayaNepalVietnamWest Himalaya
Native distribution of Calanthe davidii, 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.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
China North-Central CHN ASIA-TEMPERATE
China South-Central CHC
China Southeast CHS
Japan JAP
Taiwan TAI
Tibet CHT
Assam ASS ASIA-TROPICAL
East Himalaya EHM
Nepal NEP
Vietnam VIE
West Himalaya WHM

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 42 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -1.8 °C 4.1 °C 16.7 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 17.7 °C 24.5 °C 32.0 °C
Annual rainfall 1,651 mm 3,375 mm 4,438 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 89 mm 306 mm 676 mm

It is found where winters bring light frost. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 42 research-grade observations of Calanthe davidii 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 8 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.

  • Alismorchis pachystalyx Kuntze
  • Alismorkis pachystalyx (Rchb.f. ex Hook.f.) Kuntze
  • Calanthe bungoana Ohwi
  • Calanthe davidii var. bungoana (Ohwi) T.Hashim.
  • Calanthe ensifolia Rolfe
  • Calanthe furcata f. matsudae (Hayata) M.Hiroe
  • Calanthe matsudae Hayata
  • Calanthe pachystalix Rchb.f. ex Hook.f.

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.