Low dense spreading shrub to 50 (-80) cm tall. Branchlets angular to subterete, subtomentose. Leaves elliptic to slightly obovate or occasionally sublinear, 2.5-6 cm long, 3-10 mm wide; upper surface sparsely punctate; margins sharply and shortly refracted about the intramarginal vein; lower surface subsericeous, sometimes with emergent untidy longer hairs. Conflorescence terminal, usually on short pendulous branchlets, usually pedunculate (peduncles subterete, 5-15 mm long, subsericeous) or sometimes subsessile, dense, subglobose. Flowers acroscopic. Flower colour: buds with rusty indumentum; flower with perianth usually blackish red and style burgundy, or rarely perianth white and style pale creamy green. Perianth subsericeous outside below a conspicuously ferruginous villous limb, bearded inside. Pistil 9-10 mm long; style curved, with minute papilloid hairs in apical 1-3 mm; pollen-presenter oblique. Follicle obloid, 10-12 mm long.
Grows in dry sclerophyll forest or woodland, occasionally in swampy heath, in sandy soils over sandstone.
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