Slender shrub or tree to 14 m high; canopy conical or columnar; branches short, horizontal and sometimes drooping. Bark hard, corky, deeply fissured. Branchlets with longitudinal furrows, moderately to densely pubescent or pilose especially when young, becoming almost glabrous and often flaky. Stipular spines 2–13.5 mm long, often diminutive and appearing absent. Leaves up to 7 arising from nodes: petiole mostly 0.1–0.7 cm long, pubescent, mostly with a small gland at base of pinnae; rachis when present 0.1–0.2 (0.25) cm long; pinnae 1 (rarely 2) pairs, 0.3–1.8 cm long; pinnules 5–16 (–19) pairs, narrowly oblong to cultrate, sometimes oblong, elliptic or ±lanceolate, 1.1–4.5 mm long, 0.4–1.3 mm wide, pilose, the hairs often mainly on the margins and sparse on both surfaces. Inflorescences simple, solitary in axils; peduncles 2–10 mm long, with involucel of bracts c. ½ way or below; heads globular, 4–7-flowered, white to pale yellow. Pods flat except slightly raised over seeds, 4–20 cm long, 7–14 mm wide, coriaceous, pale olive, brown, grey or grey-green, longitudinally striate, becoming ±ridged, puberulous to pubescent or velvety. Seeds ±white-villous though areole often partly glabrous.
Grows often in grasslands, forming colonies of shrubs or trees which may be dominant or co-dominant with Bauhinia, sometimes in eucalypt woodland, frequently in grey or black, cracking, clayey soils or occasionally in sandy loam, on grassed mudflats, floodplains, in creek alluvium or on the fringe of downs in calcareous soil, sometimes in basaltic soils.
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