Pholidotas pallida is native to the eastern Himalayas and South East Asia. In Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh and Laos we have found Philodota species to be amongst the most abundant orchids present in trees along roads in a band from 500m to 1500m although these species are not well represented in collections as some of them can be rather untidy.

Pholidota pallens is not one of the untidy ones, ir is a relatively compact plant with attractive grey green pseudobulbs and long flower spikes with small but intriguing flowers that spiral around the spike.

The species is reported from 1000m altitude up to 2300m but we find it enjoys growing with a little more heat than this would suggest in our Warm Asia section