It is an erect, bushy shrub with small, crowded, thick leaves and spikes of red and pink flowers in spring.

The leaves on the side branches are crowded, oblong to egg-shaped, thick with a rounded end but with a short point and covered with soft hairs less than 0.1 mm (0.004 in) long.

[2] It is distinguished from similar verticordias by its thick, crowded leaves, the serrations on the top edge of the petals, the purple-tipped style and by the saline environment in which it is found.

[3] When Alex George reviewed the genus in 1991, he placed this species in subgenus Eperephes, section Verticordella along with V. pennigera, V. blepharophylla, V. lindleyi, V. carinata, V. attenuata, V. drummondii, V. wonganensis, V. paludosa, V. luteola, V. bifimbriata, V. tumida, V. mitodes, V. centipeda, V. auriculata, V. pholidophylla, V. spicata and V.

[5][6] The distribution range included the Coolgardie bioregion, a population around 200 km inland, until a 2020 revision recognised it as a separate species, Verticordia elizabethiae.