Tall, rigid, dark green, straggly, spreading, prickly (due to the pungent phyllodes) shrubs or small trees with a single main trunk or branching into a few main stems at ground level and developing a dense crown with intricate branches; branchlets almost terete, covered with fine soft whitish pubescence; older branches mid-dark grey, becoming almost glabrous, trunk greyish with a rough stringy fissured bark; spreading by suckering. 

<P>Phyllodes linear-subulate, tetragonous when dry, 2-6.5 cm long, 1-2 mm diam., very rigid, erect spreading to (horizontal), straight or slightly curved with fine whitish hairs thinly scattered over the surface when mature; veined at each angle, with rounded ridges at the angles and shallow grooves in between, apex somewhat abruptly tapering into a rigid reddish-brown pungent point. Glands small orbicular near the base. 

<P>Inflorescences simple and axillary, solitary, rarely twin; flower-heads globular, bright yellow, 45-50-flowered; peduncles very sparse, 12-25 mm long, greenish at first but becoming reddish-brown when dry; flowers 5-merous. Legumes rarely produced, oblong 3-5 cm long c. 10 mm broad, thickly coriaceous. Seeds longitudinal in legume, ovoid; funicle short, abruptly thickened into a large yellowish aril.