Ophrys ferrum-equinum (Horseshoe bee-orchid)

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Ophrys ferrum-equinum, photographed by tomas_kay — fig. a tomas_kay, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-03-21 / obs. 183881582

Ophrys ferrum-equinum, photographed by Katerina Kalogerini — fig. b Katerina Kalogerini, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 64149957

Ophrys ferrum-equinum, photographed by Andre Hosper — fig. c Andre Hosper, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 188109200

Ophrys ferrum-equinum, photographed by Ben Costamagna — fig. d Ben Costamagna, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 202956771

Ophrys ferrum-equinum, photographed by Marina Nioti — fig. f Marina Nioti, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 119991011

Ophrys ferrum-equinum, photographed by George Papademetriou — fig. g George Papademetriou, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 14830545

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: Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
Accession: K001949673
Filed as: Ophrys gottfriediana subsp. elegans Renz
Det. by: not recorded on this sheet
Collected: Renz
Origin: CY
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 4 botanical countries

Native distribution of Ophrys ferrum-equinum, 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.

Region	TDWG code	Continent
East Aegean Is.	EAI	ASIA-TEMPERATE
Türkiye	TUR
Albania	ALB	EUROPE
Greece	GRC

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 32 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.

Ophrys andracnitis Bory & Chaub.
Ophrys aranifera subsp. parnassica (Vierh.) Soó
Ophrys argolica subsp. mandalyana (B.Baumann & H.Baumann) Kreutz
Ophrys corinthiaca Hausskn.
Ophrys ferrum-equinum f. anafiensis (Biel) P.Delforge
Ophrys ferrum-equinum f. convexa (B.Baumann & H.Baumann) P.Delforge
Ophrys ferrum-equinum f. cruciata Soó
Ophrys ferrum-equinum f. gibbifera Soó
Ophrys ferrum-equinum f. integerrima Soó
Ophrys ferrum-equinum f. labiosa (Kreutz) P.Delforge
Ophrys ferrum-equinum f. minor (Biel) P.Delforge
Ophrys ferrum-equinum f. parnassica (Vierh.) P.Delforge
Ophrys ferrum-equinum f. subtriloba Hayek
Ophrys ferrum-equinum subsp. convexa B.Baumann & H.Baumann
Ophrys ferrum-equinum subsp. labiosa (Kreutz) Kreutz
Ophrys ferrum-equinum subsp. mandalyana B.Baumann & H.Baumann
Ophrys ferrum-equinum var. anafiensis Biel
Ophrys ferrum-equinum var. gottfriediana (Renz) Biel
Ophrys ferrum-equinum var. labiosa (Kreutz) Hennecke
Ophrys ferrum-equinum var. minor Biel
Ophrys ferrum-equinum var. pseudogottfriediana Paulus
Ophrys ferrumequinum var. mavromata (A.Alibertis & Triantafyll.) Hennecke
Ophrys gottfriediana Renz
Ophrys labiosa Kreutz

and 8 more.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
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.