Eulophia picta(R.Br.) Ormerod

Bent OrchidPink Nodding OrchidShepherds Crook Orchid

WFO wfo-1000052957 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Eulophia picta, photographed by Greg Tasney
fig. a Greg Tasney, CC BY-SA 4.0 / 2022-06-13 / obs. 205980964

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.

The specimen a real sheet, in a real collection

Herbarium
The New York Botanical Garden
Accession
8850
Filed as
Geodorum formosanum Rolfe
Det. by
not recorded on this sheet
Collected
A. Henry
Origin
TW
The sheet
View the digitised specimen (CC BY 4.0)

A real pressed plant, in a real collection, under the accession number above. Not an illustration of one. The holding institution does not serve this sheet’s image to third parties, so there is no photograph here. The record is real and the link goes to it. Where we hold no openly licensed sheet for a species this section is simply absent, and where a sheet never recorded who determined it, that field stays empty rather than being filled in. Roughly half of all herbarium sheets never recorded a determiner, which is ordinary.

Native range 42 botanical countries

Regions where Eulophia picta is native: China South-Central, China Southeast, Hainan, Nansei-shoto, Ogasawara-shoto, Taiwan, Andaman Is., Assam, Bangladesh, Bismarck Archipelago, Borneo, Cambodia, East Himalaya, India, Jawa, Laos, Lesser Sunda Is., Malaya, Maluku, Myanmar, Nepal, New Guinea, Nicobar Is., Philippines, Solomon Is., Sri Lanka, Sulawesi, Sumatera, Thailand, Vietnam, West Himalaya, Northern Territory, Queensland, Western Australia, Caroline Is., Fiji, Marianas, New Caledonia, Niue, Samoa, Tonga, Vanuatu China South-CentralChina SoutheastHainanTaiwanAssamBangladeshBismarck ArchipelagoBorneoCambodiaEast HimalayaIndiaJawaLaosLesser Sunda Is.MalayaMalukuMyanmarNepalNew GuineaPhilippinesSolomon Is.Sri LankaSulawesiSumateraThailandVietnamWest HimalayaNorthern TerritoryQueenslandWestern AustraliaFijiNew Caledonia Nansei-shotoAndaman Is.Nicobar Is.Caroline Is.MarianasNiueSamoaTongaVanuatu
Native distribution of Eulophia picta, 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
Bismarck Archipelago BIS
Borneo BOR
Cambodia CBD
East Himalaya EHM
India IND
Jawa JAW
Laos LAO
Lesser Sunda Is. LSI
Malaya MLY
Maluku MOL
Myanmar MYA
Nepal NEP
New Guinea NWG
Nicobar Is. NCB
Philippines PHI
Solomon Is. SOL
Sri Lanka SRL
Sulawesi SUL
Sumatera SUM
Thailand THA
Vietnam VIE
West Himalaya WHM
Caroline Is. CRL PACIFIC
Fiji FIJ
Marianas MRN
New Caledonia NWC
Niue NUE
Samoa SAM
Tonga TON
Vanuatu VAN
China South-Central CHC ASIA-TEMPERATE
China Southeast CHS
Hainan CHH
Nansei-shoto NNS
Ogasawara-shoto OGA
Taiwan TAI
Northern Territory NTA AUSTRALASIA
Queensland QLD
Western Australia WAU

Not drawn on the map: Ogasawara-shoto. We hold no public-domain boundary for this region, so it is listed rather than guessed at.

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 311 in flower of 674 examined

Proportion of examined Eulophia picta in flower, by month
Month In flower Examined Share 95% interval
Jan 136 166 82% 75% to 87%
Feb 42 76 55% 44% to 66%
Mar 18 42 43% 29% to 58%
Apr 7 46 15% 8% to 28%
May 7 44 16% 8% to 29%
Jun 47 90 52% 42% to 62%
Jul 19 64 30% 20% to 42%
Aug 1 37 3% 0% to 14%
Sep 1 12 8% 1% to 35%
Oct 1 26 4% 1% to 19%
Nov 1 13 8% 1% to 33%
Dec 31 58 53% 41% to 66%

Peak flowering in Jan. Each bar is the share of Eulophia picta 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. 311 of 674 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 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.

Where it actually grows measured, from 1,458 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 8.4 °C 12.1 °C 19.4 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 25.8 °C 28.2 °C 30.5 °C
Annual rainfall 932 mm 1,314 mm 2,924 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 60 mm 128 mm 223 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 1,458 research-grade observations of Eulophia picta 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. Climate from CHELSA V2.1 (Karger et al. 2017); occurrences from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Also published as 31 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.

  • Arethusa glutinosa Blanco
  • Cistella cernua (Willd.) Blume
  • Cymbidium nutans (Roxb.) Sw.
  • Cymbidium pictum R.Br.
  • Dendrobium haenkeanum Steud.
  • Dendrobium nutans C.Presl
  • Epidendrum tuberosum G.Forst.
  • Eulophia cernua (Willd.) T.C.Hsu
  • Geodorum appendiculatum Griff.
  • Geodorum candidum (Roxb.) Lindl.
  • Geodorum densiflorum (Lam.) Schltr.
  • Geodorum densiflorum var. kalimpongense R.Yonzone, Lama & Bhujel
  • Geodorum formosanum Rolfe ex Hemsl.
  • Geodorum fucatum Lindl.
  • Geodorum neocaledonicum Kraenzl.
  • Geodorum nutans (C.Presl) Ames
  • Geodorum pacificum Rolfe
  • Geodorum pallidum D.Don
  • Geodorum pictum (R.Br.) Lindl.
  • Geodorum purpureum R.Br.
  • Geodorum rariflorum Lindl.
  • Geodorum semicristatum Lindl.
  • Geodorum tricarinatum Schltr.
  • Limodorum candidum Roxb.

and 7 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. 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.