It is native to much of Europe, the Mediterranean region, and the islands of the eastern Atlantic, from the Canaries, Madeira and Ireland east to Iran and Western Siberia.

The hermaphrodite flowers are relatively small, they are greenish white, straw-colored, whitish or pink in color, zygomorphic and triad.

As with all orchids, the seeds are very numerous and dust-fine, often only 1/4 millimeter in size and a millionth of a gram in weight.

His published works include 'Plantarum rariorum Sicilae' (1817) and 'Catalogus plantarum horti' (1827)[4] The formerly monotypic genus Neotinea was extended in a revision of the Subtribe Orchidinae by Bateman in 1997 on the basis of genetic characters to include the species in the Galericulatae section of the genus Orchis.

As of June 2014[update], the World Checklist of Selected Plant Families accepts four divided into two sections including one of natural hybrid.