Dasylirion wheeleri is a moderate to slow-growing evergreen shrub with a single unbranched trunk up to 40 centimetres (16 inches) thick growing to 1.5 metres (5 feet) tall, though often recumbent on the ground.

Blooming from May to July, the flowering stem grows above the foliage, to a height of 5 m (16 ft) tall[1] and a diameter of 3 cm (1+1⁄4 in).

The Latin specific epithet wheeleri refers to the American surveyor and plant collector George Montague Wheeler (1842–1905).

[3][4] The alcoholic drink sotol, the northern cousin to tequila and mezcal, is made from the fermented inner cores of the plant.

[5] The Tarahumara and Pima Bajo peoples of the Sierra Madre Occidental of Chihuahua weave baskets from the leaves after they strip off the spines from the leaf margins.