Plants have a single, narrow, hairy leaf and usually blue flowers with relatively short, broad sepals and petals and an unusual labellum.Pheladenia deformis is a terrestrial, perennial, deciduous, sympodial herb with a few inconspicuous, fine roots and a tuber partly surrounded by a fibrous sheath.

The edge of the labellum is fringed and there are many stalked calli, giving rise to the name blue beard .

The description was published in Prodromus Florae Novae Hollandiae from a specimen collected at "Port Dalrymple", now George Town in Tasmania.

Blue fairy orchid grows in a variety of habitats, from the margins of swamps to granite outcrops, heath, woodland and forest.

In Western Australia it is found from north of Kalbarri to as far east as Israelite Bay on the south coast.