Shrub 0.5–3 m high, erect or spreading; branchlets pubescent to glabrous. Leaves linear to narrowly ovate, thick, crowded, mostly inclined to stem, mainly 1–7 mm long, rarely to 15 mm long, c. 0.5 mm wide, usually with many scattered, stiff hairs, apex blunt or minutely mucronate. Flowers white or pink, usually profuse, borne in dense clusters in upper leaf axils; bracteoles usually connate and persistent; hypanthium 7–15 mm long, adnate to style for part of its length; calyx-lobes ovate to suborbicular 1–2.5 mm long, apex produced into an awn to 17 mm long; petals elliptic to lanceolate, 3.5–7.5 mm long; stamens 23–45. Flowers mainly Sep.–Feb.