The Monkey Orchid is part of the genus Orchis, largely amputated from many species now classified in the genera Anacamptis or Dactylorhiza.

Orchis are tuberous orchids, usually having two which gave them their Greek name Orchis which means testicle. One of the tubers allows the growth of the plant while the second forms during this same period and will replace the original tuber gradually withered the following year. If we were to dig up an orchid (which I of course prohibit), we would therefore find the tuber of the year more or less withered, the tuber in the making for the future season and sometimes an old one totally withered from the previous year.

Orchids are fairly tall plants (20 to 60 cm), rather robust and easily spotted in meadows, wastelands or light undergrowth. The preferred soils are generally calcareous or marly and rather dry.

The sepals and lateral petals are united to form a "helmet" while the central petal (labellum) offers a fairly complex shape that varies from one species to another. Three Orchis are quite close morphologically and "coloristically": Orchis militaris (Military Orchis), Orchis purpurea (Purple Orchis) and Orchis simia (Monkey Orchis). Hybridizations are therefore possible that will not allow a certain identification.

From a distance, it may be confused with the Military Orchid, but its flowers have a very distinctive labellum that is very cut out and that is likened to a human or simian shape: long, thin arms and legs and even a hanging penis. Its helmet and labellum are strongly tinted with white, but the "limbs" are themselves colored.

Special feature: it is one of the rare orchids to start flowering from the top of the inflorescence. Finally, it is its reputation because most often, it is the whole inflorescence that flowers at the same time: you therefore have to be there at the right time to see its flowers (from the end of April to mid-June). We will therefore find it vaguely reminiscent of a bottle brush with its cylindrical structure. A shape preserved in the majority of hybrids for which it is a parent.

Sometimes hybridizing with Orchis militaris or Orchis purpurea, it is especially with Orchis anthrophora that we will find original shapes and colorings. As the two species have a similar labellum in shape, it is especially the colorings that make these hybrids interesting.