Calanthe sylvatica(Thouars) Lindl.

WFO wfo-0000765414 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 5 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 5 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 sylvatica, photographed by Augustin Soulard
fig. a Augustin Soulard, CC BY 4.0 / 2021-11-24 / obs. 183357181
Calanthe sylvatica, photographed by Peter Warren
fig. b Peter Warren, CC0 1.0 / obs. 31338370
Calanthe sylvatica, photographed by Augustin Soulard
fig. c Augustin Soulard, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 172655315
Calanthe sylvatica, photographed by Peter Warren
fig. d Peter Warren, CC0 1.0 / obs. 31338380
Calanthe sylvatica, photographed by grabbarg
fig. e grabbarg, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 31557002
Calanthe sylvatica, photographed by Augustin Soulard
fig. f Augustin Soulard, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 172655324
Calanthe sylvatica, photographed by Augustin Soulard
fig. g Augustin Soulard, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 183357192
Calanthe sylvatica, photographed by Ricardo Lima
fig. h Ricardo Lima, CC0 1.0 / obs. 158438824

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 28 botanical countries

Regions where Calanthe sylvatica is native: Angola, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Provinces, Comoros, Congo, DR Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eswatini, Gabon, Guinea, Gulf of Guinea Is., Kenya, KwaZulu-Natal, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Nigeria, Northern Provinces, Réunion, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe AngolaBurundiCameroonCape ProvincesCongoDR CongoEquatorial GuineaEswatiniGabonGuineaGulf of Guinea Is.KenyaKwaZulu-NatalLiberiaMadagascarMalawiMozambiqueNigeriaNorthern ProvincesRwandaSierra LeoneTanzaniaUgandaZambiaZimbabwe ComorosMauritiusRéunion
Native distribution of Calanthe sylvatica, 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
Angola ANG AFRICA
Burundi BUR
Cameroon CMN
Cape Provinces CPP
Comoros COM
Congo CON
DR Congo ZAI
Equatorial Guinea EQG
Eswatini SWZ
Gabon GAB
Guinea GUI
Gulf of Guinea Is. GGI
Kenya KEN
KwaZulu-Natal NAT
Liberia LBR
Madagascar MDG
Malawi MLW
Mauritius MAU
Mozambique MOZ
Nigeria NGA
Northern Provinces TVL
Réunion REU
Rwanda RWA
Sierra Leone SIE
Tanzania TAN
Uganda UGA
Zambia ZAM
Zimbabwe ZIM

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 184 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 4.3 °C 9.9 °C 17.6 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 18.3 °C 22.8 °C 29.8 °C
Annual rainfall 922 mm 2,497 mm 4,262 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 32 mm 252 mm 554 mm

It is barely found anywhere that freezes. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 184 research-grade observations of Calanthe sylvatica 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 29 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 emarginata Kuntze
  • Alismorchis masuca Kuntze
  • Alismorchis natalensis Kuntze
  • Alismorchis pleiochroma Kuntze
  • Alismorchis purpurea Kuntze
  • Alismorchis textorii Kuntze
  • Alismorkis centrosis (Thouars) Steud.
  • Alismorkis natalensis (Rchb.f.) Kuntze
  • Alismorkis plantaginea (Thouars) Kuntze
  • Alismorkis sylvalismis Thouars
  • Bletia sylvatica (Thouars) Bojer
  • Calanthe corymbosa (Thouars) Lindl.
  • Calanthe delphinioides Kraenzl.
  • Calanthe humbertii H.Perrier
  • Calanthe natalensis (Rchb.f.) Rchb.f.
  • Calanthe neglecta Schltr.
  • Calanthe sanderiana Rolfe
  • Calanthe sanderiana B.S.Williams
  • Calanthe schliebenii Mansf.
  • Calanthe stolzii Schltr.
  • Calanthe sylvatica var. geerinckiana Stévart
  • Calanthe sylvatica var. natalensis Rchb.f.
  • Calanthe sylvatica var. pallidipetala Schltr.
  • Calanthe sylvestris Lindl. ex Steud.

and 5 more.

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.