[2] It is a medium-sized species with purple or brown blotches on a pale green background and large discs on its fingers and toes.

Because of its small range and changes in its habitat, this frog is listed as critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

[3] This species is listed as critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)[1] and in the South African Red Data Book.

[4] The population is small, geographically restricted, and threatened by the plantations of pines on the mountain that cause the streams to dry up.

[1][3] Many of the streams historically populated by Heleophryne rosei were diverted during the 1900s in order to supply the newly built reservoirs on Table Mountain.