Habenaria trifidaKunth

WFO wfo-0000978849 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs 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.

Habenaria trifida, photographed by Lucas Kaminski
fig. a Lucas Kaminski, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-06-08 / obs. 204427780

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
1031924
Filed as
Habenaria trifida Kunth
Det. by
G. F. J. Pabst 1970-03-28
Collected
E. P. Heringer 1965-12-26
Origin
BR
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 28 botanical countries

Regions where Habenaria trifida is native: Mexico Central, Mexico Gulf, Mexico Northeast, Mexico Southeast, Mexico Southwest, Argentina Northeast, Argentina Northwest, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil North, Brazil Northeast, Brazil Southeast, Brazil West-Central, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, French Guiana, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panamá, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Trinidad-Tobago, Venezuela Mexico CentralMexico GulfMexico NortheastMexico SoutheastMexico SouthwestArgentina NortheastArgentina NorthwestBelizeBoliviaBrazil NorthBrazil NortheastBrazil SoutheastBrazil West-CentralColombiaCosta RicaEcuadorEl SalvadorFrench GuianaGuatemalaGuyanaHondurasNicaraguaPanamáParaguayPeruSurinameTrinidad-TobagoVenezuela
Native distribution of Habenaria trifida, 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
Argentina Northeast AGE SOUTHERN AMERICA
Argentina Northwest AGW
Belize BLZ
Bolivia BOL
Brazil North BZN
Brazil Northeast BZE
Brazil Southeast BZL
Brazil West-Central BZC
Colombia CLM
Costa Rica COS
Ecuador ECU
El Salvador ELS
French Guiana FRG
Guatemala GUA
Guyana GUY
Honduras HON
Nicaragua NIC
Panamá PAN
Paraguay PAR
Peru PER
Suriname SUR
Trinidad-Tobago TRT
Venezuela VEN
Mexico Central MXC NORTHERN AMERICA
Mexico Gulf MXG
Mexico Northeast MXE
Mexico Southeast MXT
Mexico Southwest MXS

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 124 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 8.4 °C 23.6 °C 24.1 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 28.0 °C 29.7 °C 32.0 °C
Annual rainfall 921 mm 2,762 mm 3,159 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 18 mm 220 mm 267 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 124 research-grade observations of Habenaria trifida 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 26 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.

  • Bonatea flexuosa Lindl.
  • Bonatea pauciflora Lindl.
  • Habenaria allemanii Barb.Rodr.
  • Habenaria angustifolia Kunth
  • Habenaria biflora Barb.Rodr.
  • Habenaria caracasana Schltr.
  • Habenaria curti-bradei Hoehne
  • Habenaria dentirostris Pabst
  • Habenaria duckeana Schltr.
  • Habenaria endresiana Schltr.
  • Habenaria flexa Rchb.f. ex Kraenzl.
  • Habenaria flexa var. rodriguesii Cogn.
  • Habenaria flexuosa Rchb.f.
  • Habenaria gehrtii Hoehne & Schltr.
  • Habenaria hoehnei Schltr.
  • Habenaria kuhlmannii Schltr.
  • Habenaria pauciflora (Lindl.) Rchb.f.
  • Habenaria pauciflora var. pluriflora Cogn.
  • Habenaria pickelii Hoehne
  • Habenaria setifera Lindl.
  • Habenaria spathacea A.Rich. & Galeotti
  • Orchis longicornu Salzm. ex Lindl.
  • Rhinorchis kuhlmannii (Schltr.) Szlach.
  • Rhinorchis pauciflora (Lindl.) Szlach.

and 2 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.