Plant: to 10 cm tall at flowering. Leaf sessile, oblong, parallel veined, low on the stem often flat to the ground.

Flowers: colourless to dull pink or maroon with flat, oblong, glistening conspicuous labellum bearing nectar droplets and two conspicuous basal calli.

Flowering: July to August.

Habitat: under kauri, lying on dense kauri litter.

Conservation: locally abundant, not threatened. Northland to Bay of Plenty.

Notes: ecologically distinct from but very similar to Cyrtostylis rotundifolia and not always easily distinguished as the flowers are identical.

Key features: leaf distinctly oblong and more prominently veined than C. rotundifolia.