It is a terrestrial orchid with broad, pleated leaves and up to and twenty pale pink flowers with dark red veins on the labellum.

Flowering occurs between December and February in Australia and between March and May, or October and November in Asia.

He published the description in the 10th edition of Systema Naturae, based on an illustration in Rumphius's Herbarium amboinense.

[5][6] In 1994, Paul Abel Ormerod changed the name to Phaius terrestris[7] but Leslie Andrew Garay considers that it was a mistake to attempt to reconcile Linnaeus' description with a later description from 1763, and relies on the original illustration in the Herbarium Amboinense.

[8][9] The specific epithet (terrestre) is a Latin word meaning "of the earth",[10] referring to the terrestrial habit of this orchid.