Plants 13–35 cm. Flowers strongly cinnamon-scented; petals greenish with broad white margin, outer and inner white border subequal; lip white; spur (3–)5–6 mm; viscidia rectangular-ovate, 0.15–0.75 mm, nearly 2 times as long as wide.

Flowering Aug--Sep. Coastal scrub and prairie, exposed coastal bluffs; 100 m; Calif.

Piperia elegans subsp. decurtata is an uncommon subspecies known only from two small populations at the tip of the Pt. Reyes peninsula, California, and separated from P. elegans subsp. elegans by only 14 km.