Papilionanthe teres, formerly Vanda teres and Ple. teres is an orchid species with many variations found in many parts of South-East Asia and is also found as north as Yunnan and in colder regions like the Himalayan foothills.
Papilionanthe teres occurs widely in Southeast Asia, east of Nepal, Bhutan and north-east India, through Myanmar and Thailand after Laos, Vietnam and southern China. They were also met on the Andaman and Nicobar islands. It is the most popular and the most widely occurring species of this type. They usually grow at heights of 250-850 m. It is a giant sized, terete leafed, vandanaceous, monopodial, hot growing epiphyte with a branching, terete, very long stem carrying straight, suberect or curved, terete, 15-20 cm long and 0.4 cm in diameter leaves.