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Perennial herb drying grey-green to pale fuscous, with a woody caudex c. 20–40 mm in diameter crowned with many very short closely scaly shoots eventually elongating into stems c. 200–400 mm long, 1–3 mm diameter at base, erect or decumbent, fastigiately well branched from the base or a little higher, branches irregularly racemose-cymose, ascending at angle of c. 45°, eventually almost filiform, up to 200–300 mm long, minutely scabridulous to glabrous, very shallowly ribbed by decurrent scale leaves.
Flowers nearly always on a scaly shoot (primary branch from leaf axil) initially branching racemosely rather than cymosely, irregularly cymose thereafter or occasionally (and always mixed with scaly shoots) a nude peduncle terminating in a flower may develop from the leaf axil, and is soon overtopped by two scaly cymose branches, many branches eventually running up into long filiform scaly apices.
Leaves usually all reduced to scales, those at extreme base of stem c. 1.5–2.5 mm long, ovate or ovate-lanceolate, those subtending primary branches c. 2.5–7 × 0.6–1.6 mm, rarely up to c. 2.5 × 0.8 mm (see discussion below), usually lanceolate, rarely linear, or sometimes ovate-lanceolate, cuspidate, thick-textured, margins smooth to minutely ciliolate.
Perianth “white”, “cream”, “very pale yellow” or “pale green”; tube 0.5–1 mm long, external ellipsoid glands very obscure; lobes 0.8–1.7 × 0.4–0.7 mm, oblong-lanceolate, subacute, hood 0.3 mm long, margins inflexed, ± erose.
Stamens inserted at base of perianth lobes; filaments 0.3–0.5 mm long, ± hidden by anthers; anthers 0.3–0.7 mm long.
Bracts c. 5 forming an involucre below the flower, 1–1.4 × 0.6–0.9 mm, ovate-cuspidate, margins ciliolate.
Fruit 2.5–3 × 2–2.5 mm, pale buff to palest dull brown, strongly ribbed and reticulate.
Style 1–1.6 mm long; stigma reaching almost to apex of hood.
Pedicels wanting.
