Leaf 100–150 mm long; free part 20–25 mm long, often close to lowest flower. Spike 15–30 mm long, 2–15-flowered. Flowers crowded, 7 × 5 mm, porrect, usually wholly reddish or purplish, less commonly yellowish green with purple stripes on dorsal sepal and petals and purple labellum. Dorsal sepal 4.5 × 2.5 mm; margins glabrous; apex sharply pointed. Lateral sepals porrect to obliquely erect, widely divergent, 5 × 1.5 mm; base not humped. Petals 4 × 1.5 mm, widely spreading; margins glabrous, apex sharply pointed. Labellum tremulous, ovate, 3 × 2 mm; margins with long hairs; apex pointed, often recurved. Callus extending nearly to labellum apex.
Widespread and localised; occurring in many habitats including open forest, coastal scrub, heathland, shallow moss gardens over rock sheets, buttongrass moorland, hummocks in sedgeland, and among rushes and sedges on swamp margins in freely draining to moisture-retentive sands, clay loam, and poorly drained peats.
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