Cypripedium venustum Wallich ex Sims, Bot. Mag. 47: ad t. 2129. 1820; Cordula venusta (Wallich ex Sims) Rolfe; Stimegas venustum (Wallich ex Sims) Rafinesque.

Plants terrestrial. Leaves 4 or 5, distichous; blade abaxially densely purple spotted, adaxially tessellated with dark green and gray- or yellow-brownish green, oblong-elliptic or narrowly oblong, 10-21.5 × 2.5-5.7 cm, acute and bilobulate or tricuspidate at apex. Scape erect, terminating in 1 or rarely 2 flowers; peduncle purple-brown, 12-19 cm, densely hirsute; floral bract ovate, 1.7-2.5 cm, conduplicate, abaxially sparsely pubescent, ciliate; pedicel and ovary 4.2-5.3 cm, pubescent. Flower 7-8 cm in diam.; dorsal sepal and synsepal white with green veins; petals yellow-whitish with green veins, flushed with purple in apical half, with a few large maroon warts mainly in basal half; lip and staminode yellowish, slightly tinged with purple-red and distinctly veined with green. Dorsal sepal broadly ovate or ovate-cordate, 2.7-3 × 2.1-2.3 cm, abaxially pubescent particularly on midvein, ciliate, acuminate at apex; synsepal ovate, 2.3-3.6 × 1.4-1.6 cm, abaxially pubescent, ciliate, acute at apex. Petals suboblong-oblanceolate, 3.5-4 × 1.2-1.4 cm, margin undulate in apical half, long ciliate, acute or obtuse at apex; lip helmet-shaped, 3.3-4.2 cm, verrucose on lateral lobes; pouch 2.2-2.4 × 2-2.8 cm, outside usually minutely papillate-puberulent. Staminode reniform-obcordate, 6-7 × 9-13 mm, puberulent, with a broad sinus and a broad mucro at apex. Fl. Jan-Mar. 2n = 38, 40, 40 + 2B, 41, 42.

Humus-rich and rocky places in thickets or at forest margins; 1100-1600 m. S and SE Xizang (Dinggyê, Mêdog) [Bhutan, NE India, Nepal].