Annual herb, erect with ascending or spreading branches, up to 90 cm high; indumentum of curved and straight hairs. Leaves linear, narrowly elliptic to oblanceolate, elliptic or obovate, 3–77 mm long, 1–11 mm wide; apex rounded, truncate, retuse or emarginate, mucro 0–0.3 mm long; petiole 0–2.5 mm long. Inflorescence axillary or supra-axillary, rarely a solitary flower, usually a raceme to 53 mm long, not exceeding the leaves. Pedicel to 3 mm long. Alae perpendicular, deflexed to occasionally reflexed in fruit (position), herbaceous, widely to very widely ovate to elliptic, 3.6–7.6 mm long, 2.1–6.2 mm wide, margins ciliate, outer surface with scattered minute curved hairs and straight hairs, or straight hairs only or curved hairs only. Corolla purple; floral appendages fimbriate; upper petal claw 0.6–1 mm wide. Stamens terminate at stigma, monadelphous; staminal flap 1 mm wide. Style hooked (horseshoe-shaped at apex), style often with beak on outer edge of bend visible in dried material, ± terete, becoming dorso-ventrally flattened below hook and twisting in apical half, with flat stigma along inner surface of hook. Capsule perpendicular, deflexed to occasionally reflexed, ± aligned with alae, with wing (the wing 1.0–3.9 mm wide, ± equal throughout), symmetrical, widely elliptic, very widely ovate, orbicular to depressed orbicular, 3.5–5.5 mm long, 2.2–4.1 mm wide; lobe apices rounded and separated. Seed ovoid-obloid, 3.06–4.70 mm long, 1.31–2.10 mm wide, with indumentum of fine white hairs. Aril head round to hooked, 0.4–0.8 mm long, white and brown or black, with short hairs. Aril appendages 3, linear, 1.1–3.3 mm long.
Found mostly in open woodland habitats with a grassy understory, typically with Eucalyptus patellaris, Eucalyptus pruinosa, Corymbia terminalis or Acacia spp., occasionally in vine thickets or bulwaddy thickets (Macropteranthes kekwickii) over Aristida, Astrebla or Triodia spp. Grows in a variety of substrates, including limestone, sandy soil and clay loam.
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