Rosette leaves 6–15, elliptic to obovate, 20–45 x 6–15mm. Flower stem 200–40 tall, 2– across, 2–12-flowered. Sterile bracts 4–7. Flowers porrect to obliquely erect, 19–22 x 7–8mm, usually translucent white with reddish-brown to dark brown markings, occasionally greenish. Dorsal sepal point filamentous, 4– long, usually decurved. Lateral sepals about as wide as hood, deeply concave, hairy, free points thickly filamentous, 12–1 long, nearly parallel, stiff, hooked upwards. Petals white, with large basal flanges blocking off base of hood, 10–12 x 3–4mm. Labellum elliptic, 5–5.5 x 2–2.5mm, thick, brown, fleshy, deeply channelled; margins with 16–20 bristles to 2. long; basal lobe broad, thick, with 8–10 bristles to long.
Localised but often common, growing among shrubs, tussocks and rocks (often granite) on ridges and slopes in drier forests, woodland and native pine forest in shallow stony soil and gravel; also on rocky outcrops and in crevices on rock sheets; rarely in stream beds where plants can be covered at peak flows (ACT).
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