It has a single smooth leaf and is distinguished from the others by its labellum which has a hump in the middle and calli covering two thirds of its outer end.

[3][4][5] The small duck orchid was first formally described in 1840 by John Lindley from an incomplete description by James Drummond in Edwards's Botanical Register.

Drummond had given it the name Caleana nigrita and Lindley published his description in A Sketch of the Vegetation of the Swan River Colony.

[6] In 1972 Donald Blaxell changed the name to Paracaleana nigrita but the name change has not been accepted by the World Checklist of Selected Plant Families and in 1989 Mark Clements noted that none of the characters used to separate Paracaleana from Caleana is "sufficiently significant" to maintain two genera.

[8] Caleana nigrita is found in near-coastal areas between Eneabba and Esperance in the Swan Coastal Plain, WarrenAvon Wheatbelt, Esperance Plains, Jarrah Forest and Mallee biogeographic regions where it usually grows in woodland and shrubland.