Sarcochilus australis(Lindl.) Rchb.f.

Butterfly orchid

WFO wfo-0000303438 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Sarcochilus australis, photographed by Brendan Costello
fig. a Brendan Costello, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-04-06 / obs. 186510857
Sarcochilus australis, photographed by corunastylis
fig. b corunastylis, CC0 1.0 / obs. 183705701
Sarcochilus australis, photographed by Brendan Costello
fig. c Brendan Costello, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 169567039
Sarcochilus australis, photographed by Brendan Costello
fig. d Brendan Costello, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 131883436
Sarcochilus australis, photographed by Brendan Costello
fig. e Brendan Costello, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 106376191
Sarcochilus australis, photographed by dorofofoto
fig. f dorofofoto, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 1672853
Sarcochilus australis, photographed by Brendan Costello
fig. g Brendan Costello, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 204581727
Sarcochilus australis, photographed by dorofofoto
fig. h dorofofoto, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 1672856

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 3 botanical countries

Regions where Sarcochilus australis is native: New South Wales, Tasmania, Victoria New South WalesTasmaniaVictoria
Native distribution of Sarcochilus australis, 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.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
New South Wales NSW AUSTRALASIA
Tasmania TAS
Victoria VIC

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 9 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.

  • Gunnia australis Lindl.
  • Gunnia picta Lindl.
  • Micropera parviflora Heynh.
  • Sarcochilus barklyanus F.Muell.
  • Sarcochilus gunnii F.Muell.
  • Sarcochilus pictus (Lindl.) Rchb.f.
  • Thrixspermum australe Rchb.f.
  • Thrixspermum australe (Lindl.) Rchb.f.
  • Thrixspermum pictum (Lindl.) Rchb.f.

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.