Very prickly, dense shrub to c. 1.6 m tall. Branchlets reddish brown, smooth, hairy when very young, glabrescent. Leaves divaricate, interlacing to form a dense mass; petiole to c. 2.5 cm long; lamina terete, to c. 4 cm long, pungent-pointed, smooth, hairy when very young, glabrescent. Inflorescence terminal, sessile, c. 35 mm long (the flowers are erect rather than spreading); involucral bracts campanulate, numerous, to c. 8 mm long, reddish brown, becoming grey, ovate, acute to acuminate, minutely hairy at first, glabrescent; margins remaining ±ciliate, imbricate; cone scales narrow, ±linear, with a tuft of hairs at apex. Flowers to c. 30 mm long, numerous, held ±upright before spreading over the persisting involucral bracts, pale pink or yellow, villous but hairs thicker and longer towards apex. Pollen presenter c. 4 mm long; basal part swollen, covered with very short, reflexed hairs, distinctly constricted at mid-point, swollen and glabrous above constriction, tapered towards stigmatic cup. Cones surrounded by persisting bracts, to c. 12 mm diam. Nuts ovoid, beaked, c. 3-3.5 mm long, villous.
Grows in shrubland in laterite, or very open shrub mallee in well-drained sand, or shrub in ironstone areas.
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