It has between four and eight large, egg-shaped leaves and up to ten small pale green or pinkish flowers with the dorsal sepal and petals forming a hood over the column.

[2][3] The native jade orchid was first formally described in 2004 by David Jones and Mark Clements who gave it the name Eucosia umbrosa and published the description in The Orchadian.

[4][5] In 2014, Julian Shaw changed the name to Goodyera umbrosa, the name accepted by Plants of the World Online.

[6][7] The specific epithet (umbrosa) is a Latin word meaning "shaded".

[8] Goodyera umbrosa usually grows in leaf litter and in rock crevices in rainforest between Mount Finnigan in Cedar Bay National Park and Mount Fox near Ingham.