Platanthera bifolia(L.) Rich.

lesser butterfly-orchid

WFO wfo-0000274336 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Platanthera bifolia, photographed by Aleksei Baushev
fig. a Aleksei Baushev, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-06-11 / obs. 205249772
Platanthera bifolia, photographed by Aleksei Baushev
fig. b Aleksei Baushev, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 205247395
Platanthera bifolia, photographed by Aleksei Baushev
fig. c Aleksei Baushev, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 205247777
Platanthera bifolia, photographed by Aleksei Baushev
fig. d Aleksei Baushev, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 205246638
Platanthera bifolia, photographed by Aleksei Baushev
fig. e Aleksei Baushev, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 205247483
Platanthera bifolia, photographed by Aleksei Baushev
fig. f Aleksei Baushev, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 205239635
Platanthera bifolia, photographed by Aleksei Baushev
fig. g Aleksei Baushev, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 205241687
Platanthera bifolia, photographed by Aleksei Baushev
fig. h Aleksei Baushev, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 205244629

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 54 botanical countries

Regions where Platanthera bifolia is native: Algeria, Tunisia, Altay, Buryatiya, Chita, Iran, Irkutsk, Kazakhstan, Krasnoyarsk, Lebanon-Syria, Mongolia, North Caucasus, Transcaucasus, Türkiye, West Siberia, Yakutiya, Albania, Austria, Baleares, Baltic States, Belarus, Belgium, Bulgaria, Central European Russia, Corse, Czechia-Slovakia, Denmark, East European Russia, Finland, Føroyar, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Krym, Netherlands, North European Russia, Northwest European Russia, Norway, NW. Balkan Pen., Poland, Portugal, Romania, Sardegna, Sicilia, South European Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Türkiye-in-Europe, Ukraine AlgeriaTunisiaAltayBuryatiyaChitaIranIrkutskKazakhstanKrasnoyarskLebanon-SyriaMongoliaNorth CaucasusTranscaucasusTürkiyeWest SiberiaYakutiyaAlbaniaAustriaBaltic StatesBelarusBelgiumBulgariaCentral European RussiaCorseCzechia-SlovakiaDenmarkEast European RussiaFinlandFranceGermanyGreeceHungaryIrelandItalyKrymNetherlandsNorth European RussiaNorthwest European RussiaNorwayNW. Balkan Pen.PolandPortugalRomaniaSiciliaSouth European RussiaSpainSwedenSwitzerlandTürkiye-in-EuropeUkraine BalearesFøroyarSardegna
Native distribution of Platanthera bifolia, 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
Austria AUT
Baleares BAL
Baltic States BLT
Belarus BLR
Belgium BGM
Bulgaria BUL
Central European Russia RUC
Corse COR
Czechia-Slovakia CZE
Denmark DEN
East European Russia RUE
Finland FIN
Føroyar FOR
France FRA
Germany GER
Great Britain GRB
Greece GRC
Hungary HUN
Ireland IRE
Italy ITA
Krym KRY
Netherlands NET
North European Russia RUN
Northwest European Russia RUW
Norway NOR
NW. Balkan Pen. YUG
Poland POL
Portugal POR
Romania ROM
Sardegna SAR
Sicilia SIC
South European Russia RUS
Spain SPA
Sweden SWE
Switzerland SWI
Türkiye-in-Europe TUE
Ukraine UKR
Altay ALT ASIA-TEMPERATE
Buryatiya BRY
Chita CTA
Iran IRN
Irkutsk IRK
Kazakhstan KAZ
Krasnoyarsk KRA
Lebanon-Syria LBS
Mongolia MON
North Caucasus NCS
Transcaucasus TCS
Türkiye TUR
West Siberia WSB
Yakutiya YAK
Algeria ALG AFRICA
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 1,456 in flower of 1,592 examined

Peak flowering in Jun. Each bar is the share of Platanthera bifolia 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. 1,456 of 1,592 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 5 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.

Where it actually grows measured, from 1,987 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -19.5 °C -9.4 °C 0.5 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 16.5 °C 22.5 °C 25.5 °C
Annual rainfall 479 mm 728 mm 1,767 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 59 mm 114 mm 327 mm

It is found where winters are severely cold. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 1,987 research-grade observations of Platanthera bifolia 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. Climate from CHELSA V2.1 (Karger et al. 2017); occurrences from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Also published as 124 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.

  • Conopsidium sthenantherum Wallr.
  • Gymnadenia bifolia (L.) G.Mey.
  • Gymnadenia bifolia var. tenuiflora G.Mey.
  • Habenaria bifolia (L.) R.Br.
  • Habenaria fornicata Bab.
  • Lysias bifolia (L.) Salisb.
  • Orchis alba Lam.
  • Orchis bifolia L.
  • Orchis bifolia var. brachyglossa Wallr.
  • Orchis bifolia var. latissima Tinant
  • Orchis bifolia var. major Besser
  • Orchis bifolia var. trifolia Gaudin
  • Orchis bifolia var. trifoliata Tinant
  • Orchis bifolia var. virens Tinant
  • Orchis ochroleuca Ten.
  • Orchis paucifolia Gaterau
  • Orchis stenanthera E.H.L.Krause
  • Platanthera atropatanica (B.Baumann, H.Baumann, R.Lorenz & Ruedi Peter) P.Delforge
  • Platanthera bifolia f. angustifolia Potonié
  • Platanthera bifolia f. anomala Neuman
  • Platanthera bifolia f. apetiolata Verm.
  • Platanthera bifolia f. brachyglossa (Wallr.) Soó
  • Platanthera bifolia f. bracteata Cortesi
  • Platanthera bifolia f. brevicalcarata (Verm.) Verm.

and 100 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. 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.