The compact multi-stemmed and pungent shrub typically grows to a height of. It has straight and erect branchlets that are rigid, spinose, usually glabrous and often with a powdery white coating. Like most species of Acacia it has phyllodes rather than true leaves. The variable evergreen phyllodes have an asymmetrically obtriangular or very narrowly oblong-elliptic shape. The pungent, dull grey green to blue phyllodes with a length of and a width of with a midrib near the abaxial margin and obscure lateral nerves. It produces yellow flowers from July to September.