English: Narrow-leaved helleborine; Sword-leaved helleborine; Long-leaved helleborine.
Name: from the Greek kephalē meaning head and anthēra, anther.
German: Waldvöglein.
Region: Europe, Asia, North Africa, from Ireland and Morocco to China, Iran, Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkey, Algeria, India, Pakistan, Germany, Italy, France, Spain, Portugal.
Habitat: light woodland; damp woodland, mainly oak and beech; forest edges; rocky slopes; prefers calcareous soils, well exposed places; altitude up to 1400 metres.
BotanyHerb; perennial; 20 to 60 cm tall; some individuals are achlorophyllous, lacking green pigment; parasitic on mycorrhizal Thelephoraceae,
Helotiales, Bjerkandera adusta, Phlebia acerina,
Sebacinaceae, Tetracladium species, Tomentella species; vulnerable to grazing by deer.
Root: rhizome.
Stem: erect; glabrous; multiple.
Leaves: dark green; long; narrowly tapering.
Inflorescence: lax, five to twenty-flowered spike.
Flowers: bell-shaped; in an oblique spiral; white, with a yellow-edged labellum;; about 1 cm long; open only during the warmest and brightest hours of the day; blooms from April to June; little nectar and the yellowish dust on the labellum which the insects collect is of little nutritional value; pollen is contained in two pollinia.
Pollination: by solitary burrowing bees.
Fruit: dry capsule.
Seed: dust-like.
Dispersion: by wind.