[3] The species' name is from the Ancient Greek words khrysos "golden" and stoma "mouth", from the yellow skin around the eyes.

[6] Ranging from 20 to 24 cm long and weighing around 55 g,[7] the parrot is sexually dimorphic—both sexes are predominantly olive-green.

The adult female is duller with dull olive underparts and smaller blue on wings and less distinctive frontal band.

It is more sporadic across central and western New South Wales and into Queensland,[10] as far north as Diamantina National Park.

[11] It lives in savannah woodland, grasslands, orchards, farmlands, marshes, heath, dunes, and other open habitats up to 1,200 m (3,937 ft) above sea level.

[13] Blue-winged parrots mainly feed on the ground, eating seeds of grasses,[7] including wallaby grass (Austrodanthonia), silver hairgrass (Aira caryophyllea), pale sundew (Drosera peltata) in Tasmania, and Poa caespitosa and the introduced capeweed (Arctotheca calendula) on the mainland,[8] and in Queensland tangled lignum (Muehlenbeckia florulenta).

[8] Flock size ranges from pairs in breeding season to up to 2,000 birds just before autumn migration.

Blue-winged parrots use hollows of live and dead trees, generally eucalypts, as nesting sites up to 20 m above the ground.

[14] The blue-winged parrot adapts readily to cultivation, and can be maintained in a 3 m (10 ft) communal aviary.