Plant: to 24 mm tall at flowering. Leaf small, often buried at fruiting;

Flowers: like pearls sprinkled on the forest floor with apparently ice capped curved dorsal sepal, petals often hidden behind spurs and sepals reduced to small needles.

Flowering: May to August; long stalked capsules evident November to December.

Habitat: favours deep litter in relatively deep shade; kanuka, beech, taraire or even Douglas fir forest.

Conservation: widespread, locally very abundant; not threatened.

Notes: capsules like C. cryptanthus, but scraping litter away usually reveals the leaf. Capsules can be very abundant.

Key features: apparent lack of petals or sepals, pearly to dorsal sepal, small leaf.