page_title: Paphiopedilum
section_title: Taxonomy and systematics
hierarchical_section_title: Paphiopedilum / Taxonomy and systematics
caption_attribution_description: English: Paphiopedilum
context_page_description: Paphiopedilum, often called the Venus slipper, is a genus of the lady slipper orchid subfamily Cypripedioideae of the flowering plant family Orchidaceae. The genus comprises some 80 accepted taxa including several natural hybrids. The genus is native to Southeast Asia, the Indian Subcontinent, southern China, New Guinea and the Solomon and Bismarck Islands.
  The species and their hybrids are extensively cultivated, and are known as either paphiopedilums, or by the abbreviation paphs in horticulture.
  The type species of this genus is Paphiopedilum insigne.
context_section_description: The genus name Paphiopedilum was established by Ernst Hugo Heinrich Pfitzer in 1886; it is derived from Paphos (a city in Cyprus, a place sacred to Aphrodite. It was said she landed at the site when rose from the sea as her birth.) and Ancient Greek pedilon "slipper". No paphiopedilum occurs on Cyprus – at least not as the genus is understood today. But it was long mixed up with its Holarctic relative Cypripedium, which grows in the Mediterranean region. Paphiopedilum was made a valid taxon in 1959, but its use has become restricted to eastern Asian species in our time.
caption: Paphiopedilum hookerii
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