Shrub or spindly tree to 4 m high; young branchlets with epidermis white, cracking and falling off to expose a pale greyish-brown inner layer, glabrous or almost so. Stipular spines straight, spreading, up to 3.5 cm long. Leaves glabrous or almost so; pinnae 1–2 pairs; leaflets 2–3 pairs, 2.5–7.5 x 1.75–4 mm, obovate-oblong to obovate, thick and ± leathery. Flowers creamy-white, in heads; peduncles 0.4–1(–2.5) cm long, densely pubescent, with involucel in lower half. Calyx 1.5–2 mm long, lobes pubescent. Corolla 2–2.5 mm long, with pubescent lobes. Pods straight or slightly curved, 6–11 x 0.7–1 cm, not winged, with the valves constricted between the seeds, brown, densely pubescent, longitudinally veined. Seeds subglobose or ellipsoid, 5.5–7 x 4–5 mm, minutely wrinkled; areole 4.5–6 x 3–4 mm.
