Israel wildflowers: Three-toothed orchid

Orchis tridentata, Neotinea tridentata, Three-toothed orchid,

Hebrew: סחלב שלוש-השיניים, Arabic: اوركيد مسنن

Scientific name:   Orchis tridentata Scop.
Synonym name:   Neotinea tridentata (Scop.) R.M. Bateman, A.M. Pridgeon & M.W. Chase
Common name:   Three-toothed orchid
Hebrew name:   סחלב שלוש-השיניים
Arabic name:   اوركيد مسنن
Family:   Orchidaceae, סחלביים


Life form:   Geophyte
Stems:   Stalk bearing blooming flowers is only between 12-25 cm tall
Leaves:   Alternate, rosette, entire
Flowers:   Raceme inflorescence, first cone shaped, later short and egg-like shaped; tepals arranged into a helmet are pinkish violet with a somewhat dark venation;the three lobed lip is whitish -to -pinkish and covered all over with deep violet spots
Fruits / pods:   Achene
Flowering Period:   March, April, May
Habitat:   Batha, Phrygana
Distribution:   Mediterranean Woodlands and Shrublands, Montane vegetation of Mt. Hermon
Chorotype:   Mediterranean
Summer shedding:   Ephemeral


Derivation of the botanical name:

Orchis, ορχιϛ, “testicle” (here, shape of), from the rootform of some species. For that reason, Orchis has been regarded since antiquity as an aphrodisiac.

tridentata, three-toothed.
Neotinea, Latin Tinea a moth; Neo Greek prefix signifying new, or fresh. This genus was originally Tinea, to which the younger Keichenbach prefixed Neo, to distinguish it from Tinea, a well-known genus of small moths.
The Hebrew name: סחלב, sahlav, Arabic sahlab, corrupted from tha’lab in husa al-tha’lab (=the fox’s testicles), the Arabic name of the tubers of the Orchis mascula (so called from the resemblance of the roots to testicles).

  • The standard author abbreviation Scop. is used to indicate Giovanni Antonio Scopoli (1723 – 1788), an Italian physician and naturalist.
  • The standard author abbreviation R.M.Bateman is used to indicate Richard Mark Bateman, an U.K. botanist,President of the UK Hardy Orchid Society, Keeper of Botany at the Natural History Museum, London, Director of Science at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, Head of Phylogeny and Palaeobotany at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh and National Museums of Scotland.
  • The standard author abbreviation Pridgeon is used to indicate Dr. Alec M. Pridgeon, a British botanist, Sainsbury Orchid Fellow of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew,
  • The standard author abbreviation M.W.Chase is used to indicate Mark Wayne Chase (born 1951), an US born British botanist.