The windswept helmet-orchid is a relatively small (30–50 mm tall), terrestrial, tuberous, herbaceous plant that forms clonal colonies.

[10] The orchid is known from ten sites on the northern half of Macquarie Island, where it inhabits the lower coastal terraces, not more than 30 m above sea level, where the vegetation is dominated by mosses that float on a substrate of waterlogged peat with a water table very close to the soil surface.

It produces seeds annually but also reproduces vegetatively through the production of daughter root-tubers on lateral underground stolons.

Although the life expectancy and age of sexual maturity of the orchid are unknown, it is likely that some clonal colonies have existed for several decades.

However, the windswept helmet-orchid is listed as endangered on the Tasmanian Threatened Species Protection Act 1995 because of its restricted distribution, small population and projected decline through ongoing habitat degradation caused by the grazing, digging and burrowing activities of rabbits.