Leaf 200–250 mm long; free part 20–25 mm long, ending well below flowers. Spike 35–50 mm long, 3–15-flowered. Flowers crowded, porrect, 11 × 9 mm, usually wholly dark purple, sometimes green and purple, rarely labellum hairs pinkish. Dorsal sepal 5 × 2.5 mm; margins shortly hairy; apex sharply pointed. Lateral sepals, divergent, 6–7 × 1.5 mm. Petals 4 × 1.4 mm; margins shortly hairy; apex sharply pointed. Labellum tremulous, elliptic-oblong, 4 × 1.4 mm, thin-textured; margins densely hairy, hairs coarse and often entangled; apex blunt to pointed, usually upturned. Callus narrow, extending about halfway to labellum apex, strongly colluviate.
Widespread, but localised; growing in moist to wet grassland, open forest, woodland, coastal forest, and heath in freely draining to moisture-retentive sands, clays, gravels and loam; also in buttongrass moorlands and peaty sedgeland in Tas.; occasionally in moss pads in shallow soil over granite.
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