Each plant has from two to four ground-hugging leaves and between three and fifteen flowers during the wet season and the species often forms spreading colonies on sandstone escarpments.

[2][3] The inflorescence is a raceme, 10–30 cm (4–10 in) tall with three to about fifteen flowers, each 15–25 mm (0.6–1 in) long with and green with brownish glands on the labellum.

Flowering occurs from October to January and is followed by a dehiscent, oval-shaped capsule about 10 mm (0.4 in) long.

[2][3] Arthrochilus latipes was first formally described in 1991 by David Jones and the description was published in Australian Orchid Research from a specimen collected in Radon Gorge in Kakadu National Park.

[2] Robust elbow orchid is found in the Top End of the Northern Territory, east of Darwin, growing on rocky outcrops and sandstone escarpments,[2] especially in the Kakadu and Litchfield National Parks.