Gymnadenia borealis(Druce) R.M.Bateman, Pridgeon & M.W.Chase

Heath fragrant orchid

WFO wfo-0000976539 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

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.

Gymnadenia borealis, photographed by Anne Thomson
fig. a Anne Thomson, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-06-08 / obs. 204398385
Gymnadenia borealis, photographed by Anne Thomson
fig. b Anne Thomson, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 204398361
Gymnadenia borealis, photographed by James Clow
fig. c James Clow, CC0 1.0 / obs. 203879964
Gymnadenia borealis, photographed by Kevin
fig. d Kevin, CC0 1.0 / obs. 141870144
Gymnadenia borealis, photographed by Terry Instone
fig. e Terry Instone, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 138175988
Gymnadenia borealis, photographed by Tom Evans
fig. f Tom Evans, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 86174411
Gymnadenia borealis, photographed by James Clow
fig. g James Clow, CC0 1.0 / obs. 203880393
Gymnadenia borealis, photographed by Terry Instone
fig. h Terry Instone, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 138176011

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 4 botanical countries

Regions where Gymnadenia borealis is native: Great Britain, Ireland, Norway, Sweden IrelandNorwaySweden
Native distribution of Gymnadenia borealis, 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
Great Britain GRB EUROPE
Ireland IRE
Norway NOR
Sweden SWE

Not drawn on the map: Great Britain. 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.

Also published as 4 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.

  • Gymnadenia conopea var. montana (Bisse) Soó
  • Gymnadenia conopsea subsp. borealis (Druce) F.Rose
  • Gymnadenia conopsea var. borealis (Druce) Soó
  • Habenaria gymnadenia var. borealis Druce

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.