Whole plant greenish, pinkish or brownish, densely pruinose. Leaf absent, replaced by sheathing bract, 60–100 × 12–18 mm, fleshy. Flower stem 150–500 mm tall, 1–15-flowered. Buds pinkish, pruinose. Flowers lasting 2–3 days, often not opening widely and remaining cupped, 14–19 × 10–13 mm; sepals and petals pinkish, greenish or brownish with red lines; labellum with reddish purple to brownish purple papillae. Dorsal sepal porrect, 5–7 × 4–5.5 mm, concave, incurved over column. Lateral sepals porrect to incurved, 8–10 × 3.5–4.5 mm. Petals porrect to incurved, 5–7 × 4–5.5 mm. Labellum curved in profile, 10–14 × 5.5–6.5 mm, ovate-lanceolate in outline, margins often incurved; basal part with 2–6 long, metallic, dark purple, shiny plates; central part with sparse, bristly, reddish papillae to 4 mm long; apical part with glandular tail c. 2.5 × 1.5 mm; labellum margins with narrow, yellowish or pinkish, triangular lobes 1–3 mm long; papillae at apex densely glandular (appearing woolly). Column 5–6 × 3.5 mm, base with 2 purple sham eyes connected by obscure, reddish ridge.
Widely distributed, but highly localised and rarely seen; found growing along drainage lines in mallee vegetation and tall shrubland (often under broombush), on old, consolidated, white sand dunes, often among litter in deep, freely draining to moisture-retentive sand.
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