Erect, rarely sprawling, shrub to 3 m high, much-branched from base, ± leafy throughout, the upper lateral branches often overtopping the central axis. Branches green, soon becoming pale brown but remaining smooth except for furrows on each side of and below each node (sometimes prickly in seedlings), glabrous. Leaves borne singly, sessile to subsessile; lamina usually obovate to narrowly so, sometimes spathulate, mostly with rounded to bluntly acute, rarely apiculate apex and with flat, entire margin (dentate in seedlings), (18–) 20–50 (–65) mm long, (4–) 7–20 (–31) mm wide, usually thick and fleshy, glabrous or sometimes with scattered minute glandular hairs on upper side. Flowers in thyrse-like, elongate, often leafy terminal aggregations of cymes, the flowering region often occupying most of the distal branches of the plant, each pedicel subtended by a pair of bracts; bracts 1.0–2.5 mm long; pedicels 2.5–7.5 mm long. Calyx 4–7.5 mm long. Corolla (14–) 17–28 (–32) mm long, yellow or pale yellow, the striations brown, purple-brown or maroon; tube rim lacking a corona; lobes spreading to inclined, linear, (9.5–) 11–20 (–25) mm long, 2–4 mm wide, lacking a tuft of hairs at the apex; margins flat to recurved. Stamens: longer pair 4–8 mm long, shorter pair 3–6.5 mm long. Capsule narrowly ovoid to narrowly ovoid-ellipsoid, acute to acuminate or apiculate, 9–19 mm long. Seeds 12–116 in all (few or none in the frequent galled fruits), 1.5–1.9 mm long.
Grows most commonly in coastal shrubland communities on calcareous sand dunes and occasionally on calcareous sandplain; usually a relatively short-lived colonising species common after fire or disturbance but sometimes a component of climax shrubland dominated by species of genera such as Acacia, Melaleuca, Agonis and Olearia.
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