Medium-sized to rather large with clear green ascending leaves. Petioles red with clearly demarcated green wings. Leaf side-lobes 5-8, becoming shorter and more crowded distally, the distal often contorted with a marked basal hump and a forward-pointing subobtuse sublinear process, the proximal more recurved, long-acute and less complex with filiform teeth on the distal margin. Leaf end-lobes very heterophyllous, the outer very small with a subdivided acuminate apex; the inner broader, even obtuse and subdivided. Exterior bracts rather narrow, to 3.5 mm wide, white-bordered, initially subpatent, becoming reflexed.

Most easily confused with T. edmondsonianum, which lacks the distinctive upper side-lobes and end-lobes of T. latens. T. latens does not show the rounded lobules on the end-lobes typical of T. edmondsonianum. The very common T. aequilobum can look like both species but has distinctively twisted exterior bracts.