It has up to three bluish green flowers with reddish brown lines and a labellum with a purplish "beard".

Most of the labellum has well-spaced, short purple hairs apart from the last quarter which is hairless.

[2][3] Calochilus psednus was first formally described in 1989 by David Jones and Bill Lavarack and the description was published in Proceedings of the Royal Society of Queensland from specimens collected south of Cardwell.

[4] The specific epithet (psednus) is derived from the Ancient Greek word psednos meaning "thin", "scanty" or "bald".

[5] The Cardwell beard orchid grows in broad-leafed paperbark woodland with dense shrubs and sedges and is only known from near the type location.