Epipactis (Helleborine)

What Is Helleborine and Where Does It Come From?

Epipactis is a genus of roughly 54 accepted terrestrial orchid species found across the temperate and subtropical regions of Europe, Asia, North Africa, and North America. Unlike the tropical epiphytic orchids seen in most collections, Epipactis species grow directly in the ground from creeping, fleshy rhizomes, sending up one or several leafy stems each year from spring through late summer. They favor the dappled light of open woodland, hedgerows, and scrub, though several species - including the North American Stream Orchid (Epipactis gigantea) - are equally at home along the damp margins of streams, springs, and lakes. A defining trait of the genus is its total dependence on mycorrhizal fungi in the soil: seeds carry almost no stored energy and cannot germinate without a fungal partner, and even mature plants rely on this underground relationship to take up nutrients. Flower spikes bear numerous small, often drooping blooms in shades of green, white, purple, and dusky pink, generally opening from midsummer into autumn. The best-known species, Epipactis helleborine, has proven remarkably adaptable, naturalizing far beyond its native Eurasian range and now appearing as a common, sometimes weedy, colonizer of parks, gardens, and city sidewalks in North America. Because of their fungal dependency, Epipactis orchids are considered specialist wild and woodland-garden plants rather than typical houseplants.