It is a leafless, brownish terrestrial orchid with up to forty reddish brown, sharply scented flowers with a dark red and yellow labellum.

It is classified as a partial mycoheterotroph that maintains a specialized symbiotic relationship with the wood decaying fungi Psathyrellaceae throughout all life stages.

Isotopic analysis and chlorophyll data have shown that the orchid also performs its own photosynthesis during the fruiting stage.

Flowering occurs between December and February in Australia and from April to May in China[2][3][5] The carrion orchid was first formally described in 1857 by Heinrich Gustav Reichenbach who gave it the name Cyrtopera zollingeri and published the description in Bonplandia.

It occurs in China, Taiwan, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, New Guinea, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam and tropical northern Queensland.