Orchis purpureaHuds.

Lady Orchid

WFO wfo-0000259904 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h

Orchis purpurea, photographed by Юрий Данилевский (Yuriy Danilevsky)
fig. a Юрий Данилевский (Yuriy Danilevsky), CC BY 4.0 / 2022-05-29 / obs. 204697973
Orchis purpurea, photographed by Jens-Christian Svenning
fig. b Jens-Christian Svenning, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 198798170
Orchis purpurea, photographed by Pavel Kacl
fig. c Pavel Kacl, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 201500873
Orchis purpurea, photographed by dschigel
fig. d dschigel, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 199396032
Orchis purpurea, photographed by Pavel Kacl
fig. e Pavel Kacl, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 201501138
Orchis purpurea, photographed by Claude Kolwelter
fig. f Claude Kolwelter, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 197624129
Orchis purpurea, photographed by Jens-Christian Svenning
fig. g Jens-Christian Svenning, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 198636038
Orchis purpurea, photographed by Petr Harant
fig. h Petr Harant, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 196236280

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.

Flowering n = 3,046 observations

Peak flowering in May, from 3,046 community-annotated observations worldwide. This is a global aggregate, not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres, and citizen-science records cluster near cities, at weekends, and in spring. Where a species has fewer than 30 annotated records we do not draw this chart at all.

Also published as 43 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.

  • Orchis aserica B.Baumann, H.Baumann, R.Lorenz & Ruedi Peter
  • Orchis brachiata Gilib.
  • Orchis caucasica Regel
  • Orchis caucasica f. aserica (B.Baumann, H.Baumann, R.Lorenz & Ruedi Peter) P.Delforge
  • Orchis fusca Jacq.
  • Orchis fusca var. idiocrana C.Morren
  • Orchis fusca var. obcordata Wirtg.
  • Orchis fusca var. rotundata Wirtg.
  • Orchis fusca var. triangularis Wirtg.
  • Orchis fuscata Pall.
  • Orchis hybrida var. jacquinii (Godr.) Nyman
  • Orchis jacquinii Godr.
  • Orchis lokiana H.Baumann
  • Orchis maxima K.Koch
  • Orchis militaris subsp. purpurea (Huds.) Bonnier & Layens
  • Orchis militaris var. fusca (Jacq.) Tinant
  • Orchis militaris var. fusca (Jacq.) Bastard
  • Orchis militaris var. purpurea (Huds.) Huds.
  • Orchis moravica Jacq.
  • Orchis purpurea f. acutilobata Ruppert
  • Orchis purpurea f. angustiloba Leimbach
  • Orchis purpurea f. incisiloba Leimbach
  • Orchis purpurea f. monstrosa Leimbach
  • Orchis purpurea f. obtusiloba Leimbach

and 19 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.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice, no toxicity claim and no native range, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.