Cynorkis lilacinaRidl.

WFO wfo-0000934901 Accepted WFO 2026-06 3 photographs CC0 / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–c · 2 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 2 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.

Cynorkis lilacina, photographed by Romer N. Rabarijaona
fig. a Romer N. Rabarijaona, CC0 1.0 / 2015-07-31 / obs. 2274630
Cynorkis lilacina, photographed by Romer N. Rabarijaona
fig. b Romer N. Rabarijaona, CC0 1.0 / obs. 2274631
Cynorkis lilacina, photographed by Andrew Hankey
fig. c Andrew Hankey, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 1094221

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 3 botanical countries

Regions where Cynorkis lilacina is native: Comoros, Madagascar, Réunion Madagascar ComorosRéunion
Native distribution of Cynorkis lilacina, 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
Comoros COM AFRICA
Madagascar MDG
Réunion REU

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.

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.

  • Bicornella lilacina (Ridl.) Szlach. & Kras
  • Bicornella pulchra Kraenzl. ex Schltr.
  • Cynorkis andringitrana subsp. curvicalcar H.Perrier
  • Cynorkis boiviniana Kraenzl.
  • Cynorkis calcaripotens (Frapp. ex Cordem.) Schltr.
  • Cynorkis lilacina var. boiviniana (Kraenzl.) H.Perrier
  • Cynorkis lilacina var. comorensis H.Perrier
  • Cynorkis lilacina var. tereticalcar H.Perrier
  • Cynorkis pulchra (Kraenzl. ex Schltr.) Schltr.
  • Cynorkis pulchra var. laxiflora Schltr.
  • Forsythmajoria pulchra (Kraenzl. ex Schltr.) Kraenzl. ex Schltr.
  • Forsythmajoria pulchra Kraenzl.
  • Hemiperis calcaripotens Frapp. ex Cordem.

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.