Plant Wiki

The open plant encyclopedia

Know any plant.
Grow it well.

Snap a photo or search by any name to see how to care for it, where it comes from, whether it's safe, and a 3D model you can turn.

  • 13,000+plants with full pages
  • 365,000+plant species worldwide
  • 220+countries covered

Common in

See all

The plants people record most in your country, and ones that grow there wild.

What do you want to do?

Popular plants

Browse all plants

See them in 3D

All plants in 3D

Browse plants

Filter by what you want to do, shape, origin, country, care and safety.

Plant Wiki › Browse plants

Leopard sun orchid

Thelymitra benthamiana

Also called Blotched Sun Orchid, Leopard Orchid

Leopard sun orchid
Photo: Geoffrey Derrin, CC BY-SA 4.0

A small Australian terrestrial orchid with a single leaf and up to ten greenish yellow, brown-spotted flowers. It is a tuberous perennial of heath and forest that flowers best after fire, so it suits native and bushland gardens rather than typical pot culture.

Family
Orchidaceae (Orchid family)
Grows as
Orchid
Light
Part shade, Full sun
Water
Keep the soil moist during active growth in winter and spring, then let it dry out while dormant in summer.
Soil
Free-draining, sandy or gritty acidic soil, such as native heath mix.
Temperature
Tolerates cool to mild temperatures; protect from hard frost and extreme summer heat.
How easy
Hard
Native range
SW. & S. Australia to Tasmania
Climate
subtropical

About

Thelymitra benthamiana, commonly called leopard sun orchid or blotched sun orchid, is a species of orchid in the family Orchidaceae and is endemic to Australia. It has a single leathery leaf and up to ten yellowish green flowers with brownish spots, blotches and patterns. The column is yellow with deeply fringed wings and the lobe on top of the anther has a large lump on its top.

Where it grows

Leopard sun orchid is widespread and common, growing in heath and forest. In Western Australia it often grows around the edges of granite outcrops. It is found in Western Australia between Geraldton and Israelite Bay, in southern and western Victoria, in south-eastern South Australia and on Flinders Island in Tasmania.

Other Thelymitra plants

Abrupt Sun Orchid · Wyong sun orchid · Gumland sun orchid · Bleak sun orchid · White sun orchid · Kath's sun orchid · Alpins striped sun orchid · Mountain sun orchid · Long-leaved sun orchid · Rabbit-eared sun orchid · Cleopatra's needles · Forest sun orchid

Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Thelymitra benthamiana by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.

The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.

Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.

Credits & terms

Identify a plant

Point at a leaf or flower and snap. One plant in frame works best.

Your photo
Starting camera…