Suffruticose perennial with brown, furrowed, subterranean stems < 3 mm diam. Branches prostrate and < 30 cm long, or erect and < 10 cm long, 1-1.5 mm diam., hirsute, dark or light brown, bark flaking with age. Internodes < 4 cm long on prostrate stems, leaves imbricate on short erect shoots. Leaves imparipinnate, 1.5-3.5-(9) cm long, 0.7-1.5-(2.5) cm wide, moderately to densely hairy; stipules 7-9-(13) mm long, free portion occasionally entire, or coarsely 3-5-fid, ½, =, or > length of adnate sheath, margins, tips, and abaxial face hairy; leaflets (3)-6 pairs, upper suboblong to suborbicular in outline, width c. f length, rounded at apex, cuneate at base, 4-10-(20) × 2.5-7-(10), 5-11- toothed, teeth broad based and deeply incised, penicillate, hydathodes pink; leaflets gradually reduced in size towards base of rachis, 1-2 basal pairs frequently entire, linear, smaller than stipule lobes; upper leaflet surface subglaucous, or ashy grey, with reddish secondary colouration, sparsely hairy to densely hairy over whole surface, lower surface paler, or distinctly glaucous, silky with appressed hairs especially on veins. Hairs simple, unicellular, < 1 mm long, on stipules, rachis, veins, margins, and teeth of abaxial face of leaflets, and on adaxial face. Scapes terminal on short shoots, (2)-4- 12 cm long at anthesis, hardly elongating as fruit matures, densely hairy, pale grey-green, occasionally reddish. Scape bract 0, or foliose, occasionally subtending a single floret. Head 6-9 mm diam. in flower, 1-1.5 cm diam. (including spines) in fruit. Bracteoles on receptacle linear, 3 mm long with hairy margins. Florets c. 40-50, minutely stipitate. Hypanthium c. 1 mm long, enclosing perigynous ovary, clad in appressed hairs and bearing 4 barbed spines which in bud reach above the hypanthium rim. Perianth of 4 sepals arising from rim of hypanthium, shortly joined at base, c. 1.7 mm long, ovate, thickened at tip, dull green with red colouration, sparsely hairy on margins and abaxial face. Petals 0. Stamens 2, filaments unequal, up to 2.2 mm long when exserted, anthers c. 0.6 × 0.7 mm, red. Style 1, 2 mm long including rose or white fimbriate stigma 1 mm broad, protruding from aperture of hypanthium. Fruit indehiscent, a single achene fused to the hypanthium, obconic, c. 3 × 1.5 mm, brown, densely hairy, 4 ribbed, each rib with a slender spine c. 5 mm long, pale brown, bearing a single rank of translucent, retrorse barbs at its tip.