O. orientalis was first described from Cyprus as long ago as 1931 but for nearly a century was still considered at best simply a geographic variation of the widespread eastern Mediterranean species O. umbilicata.

In some ways this was understandable as it bears a very close resemblance to that species and it was only after a great deal of research was undertaken on the orchids of Cyprus in the early twenty first century, that it was concluded, as with several other island taxons, that their years of isolation had evolved reliance on different pollinators and that full speciation had therefore taken place. It is however also known from northern Israel.

As with O. umbilicata the species exhibits a central, navel like ocellus formed within the speculum. This feature, although a fairly consistent characteristic, can vary in form from being absent, often incomplete and sometimes with the ocellus duplicated and rarely triplicated. It does however differ in being larger in all its parts with significantly longer petals and a longer labellum. Perhaps most importantly however, it rarely has pure white petals, these more usually tinted pink or lilac and sometimes strongly so. Identification is however unlikely to be a problem as the other O. umbilicata group species with which it comes into contact ( O. flavomarginata, O. astarte and O. carmeli) all posses a green perianth.

The photos are from Cyprus, dating from the first two weeks of March.