Oedera capensis is a prickly, sprawling shrublet of about 25 cm (9.8 in) high, that produces between two and six branches below the flower heads of the previous season.

The involucre that surrounds the cropped heads consist of several whorls of green, leaf-like bracts of usually 2–3 mm (0.079–0.118 in) wide, lanceolate, widest at midlength and with a prominent rib along the midline.

[1] Carl Linnaeus, a Swedish naturalist famous for his introduction of the binominal nomenclature, first described the plant in 1759 as Buphthalmum capense.

South African botanist Margaret Levyns thought Oedera should be split up and she reassigned the species in 1948 to her new genus Eroeda, creating the new combination E. capensis.

[1] Oedera capensis grows on dry stony slopes and flats, roadsides and sandy areas from Albertinia to the Cape Peninsula.