Stems 40-60 cm tall, slender, leafless basally but with 1 or 2 sheaths. Leaves 3-5, spreading, oblong, 4-9 cm long, 1.5-4 cm wide, apex acute or obtuse, base contracted, sheathing, many nerved. Raceme 712 cm long; bracts lanceolate, lower ones 4 cm long, 0.7 cm wide, upper ones shorter and narrower; pedicel and ovary 1-1.2 cm long, short pubescent. Flowers ca. 10, greenish; sepals subequal, ovate, 7-8 mm long, 3-4 mm wide, subacute, keeled abaxially, lateral ones slightly oblique; petals similar to sepals, apex cuspidate, keeled abaxially; lip 7 mm long, hypochile nearly orbicular, 4-4.2 mm across, deflexed, shallowly saccate, epichile ovate to subcordate, 2.8-3 mm long, 3.5 mm wide, apex short acuminate, calli retrorse, nearly orbicular, ca. 1 mm across; column 2.5 mm long; anther oblong-cordate, about 3 mm long.

TAICHUNG: Shuehshan, Su 8008*. ILAN: Nanhutashan, Su 8311.

Subspecies helleborine is in temperate Europe and Asia, China and the Himalaya; subspecies ohwii is endemic to Taiwan; alpine grasslands and sparse forests, 2,000-3,000 m.

The typical subspecies has larger flowers, with sepals 8-13 mm long, and the hypochile nearly equal in length to the epichile. Subspecies ohwii has the sepals and petals distinctly keeled abaxially and ca. 78 mm long, and the hypochile 1.5 times as long as the epichile.