Pseudobulbs cylindrical, middle swollen, 1–5 m × 40–60 mm, green, brown, reddish or purplish, becoming yellowish with age, sometimes striped, leafy in upper two-thirds. Leaves 10–35, 80–160 × 35–50 mm, leathery, dark green to yellowish, often concave, notched. Racemes 200–600 mm long, 10–40-flowered. Flowers 40–80 × 40–80 mm, mainly light brown to dark brown but also yellowish brown to bronze, often with mauve to purple markings in labellum. Sepals and petals widely spreading, strongly twisted, with wavy margins. Dorsal sepal 25–35 × 5–7 mm. Lateral sepals 25–35 × 5–7 mm. Petals 35–40 × 7–8 mm. Labellum 17–24 × 11–15 mm; lateral lobes, large, outcurved; midlobe decurved, 5–7 × 2–4 mm, with 3 main ridges, sometimes also accessory ridges, margins wavy.
Widespread and common; often very prominent in coastal districts including mangroves, littoral rainforest, headlands, coral accumulations and sometimes even growing in beach sand. Also extends into ranges, growing on rocks, cliff faces and trees in sparse rainforest, rainforest margins, open forest, woodland, scrubby thickets and isolated trees in paddocks, usually in exposed sunny situations.
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