Rosette leaves 6–12, ovate to elliptic, 10–30 x 7–12mm. Flower stem 100–30 tall, 1–10-flowered. Sterile bracts 3–6. Flowers relatively crowded, porrect to semi-nodding on short to long pedicels, 10–14 x 6–8mm, greenish with bright reddish-brown petals and sepals and translucent areas, shiny. Dorsal sepal point 1– long. Lateral sepals as wide as hood, usually recurved, shallowly concave, glabrous or slightly hairy, gradually tapered into broadly tapered free points; free points 5– long, thick, weakly divergent. Petals with small basal flanges which do not meet, 8–10 x 3–4mm. Labellum oblong, 4–4.5 x 2.5mm, fleshy, dark red-brown, apex truncate or notched; basal lobe thick, with numerous very short white bristles; margins with 10–14 white bristles 1– long.
Very widespread from coast to hills and mountains and sometimes locally common, growing on ridges, slopes and among rocks in drier forests, in heathy and grassy forests and heathland in freely draining gravelly or clayey soils; also in areas of rainshadow. Rare on coast.
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