erect or ascending, shrubby, slender, many stemmed; branches virgate, downy or glabrous; leaves either solitary or with axillary tufts, very erect, straight and rigid, subulate, taper-pointed and pungent, channelled above, ribbed or keeled below, the younger ones fringed with woolly hairs; fl. sessile; sepals lanceolate or ovato-lanceolate, acute or acuminate; petals shorter than the amply lobed keel, broadly linear, obtuse; capsules with subulate horns of its own length. When growing in moist, sandy places, this little shrub is erect and rod-like, 1–2 feet high, with many simple stems, and then answers to M. virgata, Burch.; when found in dry, stony places it is shorter, more diffuse and branching, and often scrubby, and then seems to be M. linophylla, Burch.
