Annual herb, erect with ascending branches or ± decumbent with spreading branches, up to 56 cm high; indumentum of curved and straight hairs, occasionally with only curved hairs on stems. Leaves linear, narrowly elliptic to elliptic, oblanceolate to obovate, 3–85 mm long, 1–16 mm wide; apex rounded, truncate or retuse, rarely acute, mucro 0.4–0.5 mm long; petiole 0–2.5 mm long. Inflorescence axillary or supra-axillary, rarely a solitary flower, usually a raceme to 80 mm long, not exceeding the leaves. Pedicel to 2.5 mm long. Alae perpendicular, becoming deflexed in fruit (position), herbaceous, ovate and elliptic to very widely elliptic, 3.9–7.0 mm long, 2.9–5.7 mm wide, with straight and curved hairs. Corolla purple; floral appendages fimbriate; upper petal claw 1.2 mm wide; keel petal with slight lateral pocket development or pocket absent. Stamens terminate at stigma, monadelphous; staminal flap 1.0–1.2 mm wide. Style hooked (horseshoe-shaped at apex), often with beak on outer edge of bend visible in dried material, ± terete at base but becoming dorso-ventrally flattened below hook and twisting in apical half, with flat stigma along inner surface of hook. Capsule deflexed, ± aligned with alae, (with wing 0.55–2.00 mm wide), ± equal throughout, symmetrical, widely elliptic, ovate, oblong or occasionally orbicular, 5.3–6.5 mm long, 3.7–5.7 mm wide; lobe apices rounded and separated. Seed shape irregularly obloid (hour-glass shaped), 4.2–5.7 mm long, 1.7–2.4 mm wide; testa thickened adjacent to aril; indumentum of fine white hairs. Aril head round, 0.4–0.8 mm long, white and brown or black, short hairs present. Aril appendages 3, linear, 2.4–4.6 mm long.
Almost always found on clay or cracking clay soils in grasslands with Dichanthium, Astrebla and Iseilema, often with Eucalyptus microtheca, E. pruinosa, Corymbia terminalis or Bauhinia cunninghamiana.