The straggly and pungent shrub typically grows to a height of 1 to 2 metres (3 to 7 ft)[1] and can have a rounded or funnel-shaped habit with glabrous and lenticellular branchlets that have raised stem-projections where phyllodes have been lost.

The dull green to pale red coloured, rigid, pungent and glabrous phyllodes attach directly to the branchlets and mostly have a flat and narrowly linear shape with a length of 1 to 3 cm (0.39 to 1.18 in) and a width of 0.8 to 1.5 mm (0.031 to 0.059 in) and have eight nerves in total with three per face.

Following flowering it produces thinly leathery to crustaceous seed pods that resemble a string of beads and are up to 8 cm (3.1 in) in length with a width of 5 to 6 mm (0.20 to 0.24 in) and contain shiny black seeds with an elliptic and a length of about 4 mm (0.16 in) with a creamy coloured aril.

[2] It is native to an area in the Mid West and Wheatbelt regions of Western Australia where it is commonly situated on rocky hills growing in stony gravel or sandy soils over or around ironstone.

[1] It has a disjunct distribution over a limited range from around Mount Farmer Station in the west to Yalgoo in the east where it is usually a part of open shrubland communities.