This small hummingbird lives in open high-Andean grassland above treeline, often with scattered shrubs. Males have a colorful throat ornament and it feeds from tiny flowers at ground level.
A dark, short-billed hummingbird. Adult males are gray-green above and gray below, with a narrow iridescent green gorget and long forked gray tail. Females lack the gorget and have a dusky-brown, slightly notched tail. Both sexes have a straight black bill.
It occupies open grassland with scattered shrubs at about 2,800–4,500 m. It often lands on the ground to take nectar from tiny flowers among the grass and may walk over short grass.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.