Leptochilus ellipticus(Thunb.) Noot.

WFO wfo-0001256451 Accepted WFO 2026-06 5 photographs CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–e · 3 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 3 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.

Leptochilus ellipticus, photographed by harum.koh
fig. a harum.koh, CC BY-SA 4.0 / 2020-07-21 / obs. 85539990
Leptochilus ellipticus, photographed by harum.koh
fig. b harum.koh, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 85540131
Leptochilus ellipticus, photographed by harum.koh
fig. c harum.koh, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 85542027
Leptochilus ellipticus, photographed by harum.koh
fig. d harum.koh, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 85542042
Leptochilus ellipticus, photographed by harum.koh
fig. e harum.koh, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 85540012

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 19 botanical countries

Regions where Leptochilus ellipticus is native: China South-Central, China Southeast, Hainan, Japan, Korea, Nansei-shoto, Ogasawara-shoto, Taiwan, Tibet, Assam, East Himalaya, Laos, Myanmar, Nepal, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam, West Himalaya China South-CentralChina SoutheastHainanJapanTaiwanTibetAssamEast HimalayaLaosMyanmarNepalPhilippinesSri LankaThailandVietnamWest Himalaya KoreaNansei-shoto
Native distribution of Leptochilus ellipticus, 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
Assam ASS ASIA-TROPICAL
East Himalaya EHM
Laos LAO
Myanmar MYA
Nepal NEP
Philippines PHI
Sri Lanka SRL
Thailand THA
Vietnam VIE
West Himalaya WHM
China South-Central CHC ASIA-TEMPERATE
China Southeast CHS
Hainan CHH
Japan JAP
Korea KOR
Nansei-shoto NNS
Ogasawara-shoto OGA
Taiwan TAI
Tibet CHT

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.

Also published as 40 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.

  • Colysis boisii Ching
  • Colysis decurrens (Wall. ex Hook. & Grev.) Nakaike
  • Colysis elegans Sa.Kurata
  • Colysis elliptica (Thunb.) Ching
  • Colysis elliptica f. furcans (Ching) Ching
  • Colysis elliptica var. elliptica
  • Colysis elliptica var. longipes (Ching) L.Shi & X.C.Zhang
  • Colysis flavescens (Ching) S.R.Ghosh
  • Colysis flavescens (Ching) Nakaike, S.Matsumoto & Gurung
  • Colysis kiusiana Sa.Kurata
  • Colysis leptophylla H.Ito
  • Colysis longipes Ching
  • Colysis pothifolia monstr.bipinnatifida (H.Itô) Nakaike
  • Colysis pothifolia f. bipinnatifida H.Itô
  • Colysis pothifolia var. membranacea Nakai
  • Grammitis decurrens Wall. ex Hook. & Grev.
  • Gymnogramma elliptica C.B.Clarke
  • Gymnogramma elliptica (Thunb.) Hook. & Baker
  • Gymnogramma elliptica (Thunb.) Baker
  • Gymnogramma elliptica var. furcans Tutcher
  • Gymnogramma pothifolia Spreng.
  • Leptochilus elegans (Sa.Kurata) Nakaike
  • Leptochilus ellipticus var. longipes (Ching) Noot.
  • Leptochilus kiusianus (Sa.Kurata) Nakaike

and 16 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.