The one-seeded fruits (or cypselas) are inverted, egg-shaped to oval, yellow-brown to reddish in color, have two conspicuous vascular bundles along their edge, and are crowned by a circle of many, 4 mm (0.16 in)-long, bone-colored hairs, with small teeth along their length and slightly wider at the tip.

Solitary flower heads sit at the tip of a 0–4 cm (0.0–1.6 in) long peduncles, in few-headed, umbel-like inflorescences.

[4][5] The species was first described by Swedish naturalist Carl Peter Thunberg in his 1800 work Prodromus Plantarum Capensium as Pteronia echinata.

A slightly different, hairless plant was described by Augustin Pyramus de Candolle in 1836, who named it Felicia paralia, but in 1865, the Irish botanist William Henry Harvey reduced this taxon to F. echinata var.

In 1973, Jürke Grau established that there is a continuous range in hairiness, and so considered F. paralia synonymous with Felicia echinata.

[4] An endemic of the Cape Floristic Region, F. echinata only occurs in a narrow strip along the south coast between Mossel Bay and Bathurst.

[7] Felicia echinata adapts readily to cultivation, requiring well-drained soil and a sunny position.