Orchis simiaLam.

Monkey orchid

WFO wfo-0000260021 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Orchis simia, photographed by katunchik
fig. a katunchik, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-05-23 / obs. 201249862
Orchis simia, photographed by Raffaele Maiorano
fig. b Raffaele Maiorano, CC0 1.0 / obs. 197608198
Orchis simia, photographed by David Delon
fig. c David Delon, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 194464243
Orchis simia, photographed by David Delon
fig. d David Delon, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 193166358
Orchis simia, photographed by Patrick Meurin
fig. e Patrick Meurin, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 191272581
Orchis simia, photographed by Mourad Harzallah
fig. f Mourad Harzallah, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 189908259
Orchis simia, photographed by Mourad Harzallah
fig. g Mourad Harzallah, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 189908192
Orchis simia, photographed by Mourad Harzallah
fig. h Mourad Harzallah, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 189908137

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 31 botanical countries

Regions where Orchis simia is native: Algeria, Libya, Tunisia, Cyprus, East Aegean Is., Iran, Iraq, Lebanon-Syria, North Caucasus, Palestine, Transcaucasus, Türkiye, Turkmenistan, Albania, Baleares, Belgium, Bulgaria, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Kriti, Krym, Netherlands, NW. Balkan Pen., Romania, Spain, Switzerland, Türkiye-in-Europe AlgeriaLibyaTunisiaCyprusEast Aegean Is.IranIraqLebanon-SyriaNorth CaucasusPalestineTranscaucasusTürkiyeTurkmenistanAlbaniaBelgiumBulgariaFranceGermanyGreeceHungaryItalyKritiKrymNetherlandsNW. Balkan Pen.RomaniaSpainSwitzerlandTürkiye-in-Europe Baleares
Native distribution of Orchis simia, 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
Albania ALB EUROPE
Baleares BAL
Belgium BGM
Bulgaria BUL
France FRA
Germany GER
Great Britain GRB
Greece GRC
Hungary HUN
Italy ITA
Kriti KRI
Krym KRY
Netherlands NET
NW. Balkan Pen. YUG
Romania ROM
Spain SPA
Switzerland SWI
Türkiye-in-Europe TUE
Cyprus CYP ASIA-TEMPERATE
East Aegean Is. EAI
Iran IRN
Iraq IRQ
Lebanon-Syria LBS
North Caucasus NCS
Palestine PAL
Transcaucasus TCS
Türkiye TUR
Turkmenistan TKM
Algeria ALG AFRICA
Libya LBY
Tunisia TUN

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.

Flowering 741 in flower of 762 examined

Peak flowering in May. Each bar is the share of Orchis simia observations in which someone actually recorded the reproductive state and found the plant in flower, not the raw number of flowering records. That distinction matters: people observe plants far more in spring than in winter, so a bare count of flowering records partly measures when people go outside. Dividing by the number examined removes that. 741 of 762 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 8 months have fewer than 5 examined observations, so no proportion is drawn for them. This is still a global aggregate and not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres. Where a species has fewer than 30 flowering records we do not draw this chart at all. Computed from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Also published as 19 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 cercopitheca Poir.
  • Orchis linearis Tourlet
  • Orchis militaris Sm.
  • Orchis militaris subsp. simia (Lam.) Bonnier & Layens
  • Orchis militaris var. laxiflora Boiss.
  • Orchis militaris var. simia (Lam.) Gaudin
  • Orchis simia f. rotundilobus Cortesi
  • Orchis simia prol. brevidens Rouy
  • Orchis simia subsp. simia
  • Orchis simia subsp. taubertiana (B.Baumann & H.Baumann) Kreutz
  • Orchis simia var. alba St.-Lag.
  • Orchis simia var. brevidens Rouy
  • Orchis simia var. cercopitheca (Poir.) Georgi
  • Orchis simia var. laxiflora Boiss.
  • Orchis smithii Sweet
  • Orchis taubertiana B.Baumann & H.Baumann
  • Orchis tephrosanthos var. cercopitheca (Poir.) Mérat
  • Orchis zoophora Thuill.
  • Strateuma militaris Salisb.

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.