It grows as a straggly, perennial shrub or small tree, virgate, much-branched, dark green, often with purple bloom, and usually leafless, and may reach 2 meters in height.

Its deep-red flowers (rarely yellow) in axillary clusters have prominently exserted stamens, making this a colourful plant in summer.

Fruits are some 90 mm in length, green at first, turning a rusty brown when mature, and covered in sticky hairs.

in depth, broadly elliptic, obtuse at the apex, with capitate, glandular hairs densely or sparsely scattered on both sides.

Ovary narrowly cylindric, glabrous or glandular-pubescent; ovules numerous, on 2 placentas; stigma capitate, sessile.

At its southern extent, it occurs in clay-rich soils in the Little Karoo and Overberg regions, as far south-west as the town of Montagu.