[3] The spreading tree or shrub typically grows to a height of 5 metres (16 ft) with smooth fissured dark grey bark.

The spikes are bright golden with small flowers, that eventually form flat seed pods which have a linear to narrowly oblong shape and are 4 to 9 cm (1.6 to 3.5 in) and a width of 3 to 5 mm (0.12 to 0.20 in).

[4] The species was first formally described by the botanist Spencer Le Marchant Moore in 1899 as part of the work The Botanical Results of a Journey into the Interior of Western Australia as published in the Journal of the Linnean Society, Botany.

[3] In it is found on rocky ridges, breakaways in skeletal sand soils in inland areas of all states of mainland Australia except Victoria.

[3] In Western Australia it is found in the Mid West, Pilbara and Goldfields-Esperance regions where it grows in stony red sandy-clay-loam soils over ironstone, basalt or laterite.