Slender suffruticose perennial with grey brown, subterranean stems < 2mm diam. Branches prostrate and < 30 cm long, or erect and < 5 cm long, c. 1 mm diam., light brown, hirsute, epidermis flaking with age; internodes < 3 cm long on prostrate stems, leaves imbricate on short erect shoots. Leaves imparipinnate, 1.5-7 × 0.8-2.5 cm, silky with appressed hairs; stipules 5-9 mm long, free portion entire or with 1-5 linear lobes, ½ or = length of sheath, margins, tips and abaxial face hairy; leaflets 3 or 4 pairs, abruptly reduced in size below the ultimate pair, 3 distal leaflets suborbicular in outline, truncate at apex, shallowly cuneate at base, 5-10-(20) × 4-10-(15) mm, 11-15 toothed, teeth acute, not deeply incised, often red-brown, with red hydathodes, lower leaflets distant, usually less than half size of ultimate pair, deeply incised, basal pair linear, entire or bifid, smaller than stipule lobes, leaflets pale subglaucous, upper surface sparsely hairy, lower surface silvery with appressed hairs. Hairs simple, unicellular, < 1 mm long on stipules, rachis, and leaflets. Scapes terminal on short shoots, (5)—7—10 cm long at anthesis, hardly elongating as fruit matures, slender, c. 0.6 mm diam., densely to moderately hairy, pale red-brown. Scape bract 0, or foliose. Capitulum 7-9 mm diam. in flower, 10-15 mm diam. (including spines) in fruit. Bracteoles on receptacle linear, < 3 mm long, with hairy margins. Florets c. 40, minutely stipitate. Hypanthium c. 1 mm long, enclosing perigynous ovary, densely hairy, bearing 4 barbed spines which reach above the hypanthium rim. Perianth of 4 sepals arising from hypanthium rim, free, c. 1.5 mm long, narrow ovate, thickened at tip, hairy on abaxial face and margins. Petals 0. Stamens 2, filaments unequal, up to 3 mm long when exserted, anthers c. 0.6 × 0.6 mm, white. Style 1, 2 mm long, including white, fimbriate stigma 1 mm broad, protruding from aperture of hypanthium. Fruit indehiscent, a single achene enclosed in the hypanthium, obconic, c. 2 × 1.5 mm, redbrown, densely hairy, 4 ribbed, each rib with a slender, pale brown spine c. 4 mm long, bearing a single rank of translucent, retrorse barbs at its tip.

Suffrutex tenuis; caules ad 2 mm diam., ad 30 cm longi, proni et radicantes. Folia ad 7 cm longa, imparipinnata; foliola 7-9, subglauca; foliola distalia tria approximata, suborbiculata, c. 10 mm diam., supra glabrata, subtus semper sericea, dentibus 11-15, rufis; foliola inferiora parva et remota. Scapus c. 7 cm longus. Filamenta ad 3 mm longa; antherae albae. Fructus c. 2 × 1.5 mm, pilosus. Inter species sectionis Ancistmm bene evolutis glochideis fructus spinis carpelloque singulari sed ab eis omnibus differt foliorum forma.