Flowering plant 5–24 cm tall, all parts drying-black. Leaf basal, broadly ovate to orbicular, fleshy, variable in size, 15–70 mm long, 10–40 mm wide, green, often spotted red or black. Flowering-stem thick and fleshy, stem-bracts usually 2, loosely sheathing, leaf-like, rather blunt, 2–4 cm long. Flowers 2–7, purplish red and white (jet-black when dried), lightly perfumed; pedicel (including ovary) 10–15 mm long, sheathed by large bract which also envelops perianth; dorsal sepal usually light coloured with purplish-red stripes, broadly lanceolate, much incurved, 20–25 mm long; lateral sepals spreading or deflexed, dark-purple, linear, free, equal to dorsal sepal; petals similar to lateral sepals but spreading or slightly drooping. Labellum sessile, obovate-lanceolate, c. 15 mm long, lighter coloured with purple veins and a dark tip; lateral lobes erect, embracing column, ragged towards front, mid-lobe with blunt tip, much recurved, fringed or deeply toothed, longitudinally ridged between lateral lobes, with minute white calli covering all but ridge on upper and lower surfaces. Column erect, incurved, very narrowly winged. Flowers Sep.–Nov.
LoM, Wim, GleP, VVP, GipP, OtP, WaP, Gold, CVU, GGr, DunT, EGL, EGU, WPro, HSF, OtR, Strz. Also WA, SA, NSW, Tas. Common on damp and dry heath in far-western and southern Victoria, but rarely flowering without hot bushfires in the previous summer.
