Short to medium plant. Leaves 7 to 12 usually dark spotted. Bracts usually shorter than flowers. Flowers vary in colour from whitish. to reddish purple, the lip with deeper, looped line markings and spots. Lip 7 to 11 mm deeply 3 lobed.

This is a difficult genus that readily hybridises, leading to many intermediate forms; the species also exhibit a wide range of variation. Other Dactylorhiza in VC55 are Heath-spotted Orchid, Southern Marsh Orchid, Early Marsh Orchid, and hybrid between Common Spotted and Southern Marsh Orchids (D x grandis); other hybrids within Dactylorhiza are possible where both parents grow together. 

Note that Orchis mascula, the Early-purple Orchid, also has spotted leaves.

Stem solid; leaves nearly always spotted.  Labellum (lower lip) lobed c. half-way to base with central lobe usually longer than the two laterals and more than half as wide as them.  Flowers usually pale pink, but can be almost white, or darker pink.

A photograph showing details of flower and spotted leaves 

Grassy habitats and open woods.

June to early August.

Perennial.

Fairly frequent throughout Britain.

Fairly frequent in Leicestershire and Rutland, and can be quite common in favoured locations. In the 1979 Flora survey of Leicestershire it was found in 91 of the 617 tetrads.

In the current checklist (Jeeves 2011) it is listed as occasional, but sometimes frequent where it occurs