Habit: multi-stemmed shrub to 3 m; branches erect or sprawling; branchlets with spreading hairs initially but rapidly glabrescent. Heteroblastic: spinescent short shoots in most developmental stages, leaf size and shape variable within stands. Juvenile development stage leaves clustered around spinescent short shoots, petiolate, elliptic, to about 10 mm long, 4–5 mm wide; margins very dentate, nearly lobed; apex acute and toothed, both leaf surfaces glabrescent. Adult stages with fewer spinescent shoots; leaves becoming alternate, petioles 1–3 mm, lamina obovate, 16–30 mm long, 5–8 mm wide; margins thickened, not recurved, apices rounded to acute with prominent mucro, glabrous. Inflorescences leafy, slightly reduced panicles (mostly second and rarely third order branching). Flowers white, with distinctive pedicel bracts, in pairs, one leaf-like, 6–9 mm long; pedicels 4–6 mm. Sepals persistent, 1–2 mm long, spreading from the base; petals 5, 5–6 mm long, spreading from the base. Stamens opposite sepals, filaments tapering to much smaller ovoid anthers dehiscing through slits at petal break. Fruits are dehiscent capsules, brown when mature, rather rounded 6–9 mm diam. persisting. Seeds 2 or 3 per loculus, flat, not winged at margins. Flowering coincides with the beginning of the dry season in Central Queensland (Apr.–May?); mature fruit some months later (July).
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