Rigid, prickly, rounded, intricately branched shrubs 2-3 m high and often spreading the same or more across; branchlets reddish-brown and pubescent but becoming grey and glabrous with age, marked with raised scars of phyllode bases; bark grey, slightly fissured at base of stems. 

<P>Phyllodes 1-2.5 cm long, 1-1.5mm diam., terete-compressed very rigid, pungent, spreading, sometimes with a few scattered hairs, slightly swollen at the base and situated on raised phyllode bases, veins longitudinal 16 or more, inconspicuous and closely placed; glands small usually 2 mm or up to half the distance along the phyllode from the base.

<P>Inflorescences simple and axillary, usually twin or in clusters up to 5; flower-heads small more or less globular, mid-yellow, c. 15-flowered; peduncles slender, glabrous about 1/2 as long as phyllodes; flowers 5-merous. 

<P>Legumes narrow-oblong, 3-6 cm long, 4-5 mm broad, curved and twisted, firmly chartaceous, margins slightly contracted between seeds. Seeds longitudinal in legume, ellipsoid; funicle short, thickening into a large conical yellowish aril.