Plants 50–75 cm tall. Leaves 2–5, basal, petiolate, glabrous; petiole 5–11 cm long, canaliculate; blade 5.5–14 cm long, 2.5–4.5 cm wide, obliquely elliptic to elliptic-lanceolate, acuminate. Peduncle erect, glandular towards the apex, 2–4-sheathed, terminated by a subdensely many-flowered raceme up to 15 cm long. Flowers medium-sized, sepals rather sparsely glandular. Floral bracts 11–14 mm long, oblong, subacute, densely glandular. Pedicellate ovary 14–25 mm long, densely hairy-glandular. Dorsal sepal 7.2–9 mm long, 1.5–2 mm wide, oblong-ligulate, blunt, 5-veined. Petals unguiculate; claw free part ca 0.5 mm long; lamina five mm long, 1.5–2 mm wide, transversely elliptic-reniform or dolabriform-triangular, obtuse to blunt at both ends, veins branching from the base of the free part. Lateral sepals 8–10.5 mm long, 2.5–3 mm wide, elliptic-obovate, apically strongly falcate, obtuse, free to the base or basally connate, 5-veined, lateral veins more or less branching. Lip shortly unguiculate or subsessile; lamina 2.5–4.5 mm long, up to 1.8 mm wide, oblong-pandurate in general outline, apex ligulate, rounded to subacute, below apex prominent hook-like, upcurved appendage, at the base of disc prominent thickening directed toward the apex. Gynostemium 2–2.5 mm long, rather robust, shortly stalked (Fig. 24).
Ecology: Terrestrial in humid montane forest. Flowering in April.
Distribution: Colombia. Alt. 1,900–2,100 m

Notes: According to Schlechter (1920) this species differs from similar P. diptera, by the lip and petals form. Garay (1978: 217), however, considered these two species as conspecific. The lip of P. elata is ornamented near the apex with hook-like, upcurved appendage, while in P. diptera the apical callus is distinctly bidentate.
There is a drawing of Ponthieva elata made under Schlechter’s supervision of Madero 169 collection in the AMES herbarium. Schlechter (1920), however, mentioned in the protologue Madero s.n.