Leaf 100–270 × 3–8 mm, channelled, dark green, base purplish. Flower stem 130–450 × 1–2.2 mm, 1–10-flowered. Sterile bract usually 1. Flowers 20–27 mm across (rarely as small as 13 mm across), interior dark azure blue with darker longitudinal veins, sometimes flushed with mauve or pink, exterior often brownish. Sepals and petals 6–13 × 3–7 mm, concave; labellum narrower than petals. Column 2.5–4.5 × 2–2.5 mm, blue to purplish, winged with projecting flanges; post-anther lobe slightly hooding anther, 0.5–1 × 1–2 mm, dark purplish to blackish with yellow tip, apex in short arc, toothed or warty; auxiliary lobes converging, fleshy, rod-like, widest at base, tapered, apex yellow, toothed or warty; column arms obliquely erect, converging, tapered, 1.2–2 mm long; hair tufts mop-like, white or purplish, hairs 0.7–1 mm long. Anther at base of column.
Localised in heathy forest, heathland and mallee shrubland; found growing in freely draining sand or sandy loam; occasionally occurs in wetter soils around margins of swamps, also on crests and slopes of stabilised dunes; in S.A. it's often found growing in terra rossa soil over limestone sheets.
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