Perennial herb; rootstock large tuberous, producing several woody subterranean stems up to 1.5 cm thick branching at ground-level; branches erect, up to c. 10(20) cm high, or decumbent to 30 cm long, usually woody or sometimes herbaceous when produced after annual fires, shortly pubescent with crisped hairs.Leaves with a puberulous petiole to 5 mm long; stipules small, glandular, reddish; lamina to 70 × 9 mm, usually much less, linear-lanceolate, acute apiculate at the apex, rounded at the base, entire, midrib prominent beneath, margin and midrib beneath usually pubescent especially towards the base.Cymes reduced to solitary cyathia terminating leafy branches.Cyathia on pubescent peduncles 1–3(5) cm long, 4.6 × 7 mm, with cup-shaped involucres, pubescent with spreading crisped hairs; glands 5(6), distant, pink, c. 1.5 × 2.2 mm, transversely elliptic, markedly 2-lipped to funnel-shaped with a transverse opening, margins entire; lobes c. 1.75 × 2.5 mm, transversely rectangular, margin deeply toothed, ciliate.Male flowers many: bracteoles laciniate, feathery; stamens 4.5 mm long, with pedicels usually pubescent at the apex.Female flower: styles 2 mm long, pubescent, joined to halfway, with spreading recurved shortly bifid apices, channelled on the upper (inner) surface.Capsule subsessile, shallowly 3-lobed, 5 × 7 mm, densely pubescent.Seeds 3.5 × 3.2 mm, subglobose, very obtusely pointed at the apex, smooth, brown speckled.