Erect shrub to 1.5 m tall. Branchlets glabrous or slightly tomentose. Leaves usually deeply divided, rarely simple, to c. 6.5 cm long overall, primarily 3-lobed; petiole to 28 mm long; lamina flattened, ±rigid, pungent, glabrous or with sparse, fine, spreading hairs; lobes often 3-5-lobulate, 3-35 mm long. Inflorescence ovoid, sessile, axillary, 5-6 mm long; involucral bracts small, deciduous; cone scales ovate, villous; tip glabrous. Flowers 8-10 mm long, creamy yellow or yellow, sericeous to almost villous. Pollen presenter 4 mm long overall, slightly thickened to turbinate and truncate below the brush; brush c. 2.5 mm long, yellow, glabrous or sparsely and minutely hairy. Cones ±ovoid, c. 16 mm long. Nuts c. 6 mm long, winged.
Grows in heathland in grey or white sand, in shrubland in loam, laterite, deep brown sand or clay flats and in heathland, associated with Eucalyptus marginata /E. calophylla in laterite; also in Eucalyptus wandoo woodland in grey gravelly clay soil, in open scrub in sandy soil, in damp sandy areas and in swampy forest on ironstone.