It is a perennial, herbaceous prostrate subshrub, with simple petiolate leaves with "cartilaginous" (hard and tough, resembling cartilage) margins.

[1][2][3][4] The genus and species were first published in 1861 by Ferdinand von Mueller in Fragmenta Phytographiae Australiae, based on specimens collected in the Murchison region by Pemberton Walcott and Augustus Frederick Oldfield.

[5][6] Placement of the genus within a family has previously been considered a difficult problem; it has at various times been placed in Capparaceae, Sapindaceae, Goodeniaceae and, in the Cronquist system, Polygalaceae.

[7][9] It is endemic to Western Australia, occurring in grey, yellow or red sand, on undulating sandplains of the west coast.

It is most common in the Geraldton Sandplains and Carnarvon biogeographic regions, but also occurs on the north western edge of the Avon Wheatbelt.