Low, often dense, sometimes prostrate and cushion-like shrubs 0.1–0.3(–0.7) m high; young branchlets glabrous or with sparse, minute, white, multi-armed hairs when very young, with obscure tufts of short hairs in the leaf axils. Leaves spreading, scattered, linear, 5–10(–18) mm long, 0.6–1.2 mm wide, the margins revolute and tightly abutting the midrib, which is usually rather weak and sunken relative to the margins (rarely robust and level with the margins), or to each other, the abaxial surface obscured; adaxial surface smooth to tuberculate, with sparse, hooked hairs until mature (eventually glabrescent), sometimes also with sparse, minute, antrorse hairs from the tubercles when young (rarely almost glabrous from a young age), with short, multi-armed hairs at the very base; abaxial midrib smooth on the back, prominently tuberculate on the flanks where it meets the lamina, which is glabrous (but is almost or completely hidden within the lacunae formed between the margins and the midrib and usually requires dissection to examine); petiole abaxially glabrous; apex tapering and pungent-pointed. Flowers pedicellate, from upper leaf nodes or on lateral shoots, the pedicels 8–15(–18) mm long, glabrous or rarely with sparse, minute, stellate hairs below the flower; bract 1, subtending the flower at the apex of the pedicel, linear to narrowly triangular, 1.5–3 mm long, abaxially glabrous, adaxially and on the margins minutely pubescent. Sepals ovate-acute, 3.4–4.8 mm long, herbaceous, glabrous or rarely with scattered, weak, hooked hairs mostly towards the base, usually prominently indurate at the base; midribs of outer sepals usually prominent; outer and inner sepals similar in size and shape but the inner slightly broader, scarious-margined, and with minute stellate hairs where overlapped by the outer in bud. Petals 5, yellow, broadly obovate, 4.5–6 mm long, deeply emarginate. Stamens 10, all on one side of the gynoecium and curving over it like a hand of bananas; filaments 0.3–0.4(–0.6) mm long, fused at the base into a robust claw; anthers rectangular, 1.2–2.2 mm long, dehiscing by introrse, longitudinal slits. Staminodes 2 either side of the stamens. Carpels 2; ovaries globular, densely pubescent; styles inserted excentrically on the carpel apex, parallel and curved beneath the stamens, 1–1.5 mm long. Ovules 2 per carpel. Fruiting carpels usually ovoid (when 1-seeded by abortion) to elongate and slightly constricted in the middle (when 2-seeded); seeds glossy, mid- to red-brown, somewhat broader than long, 1.6–2 mm diam; aril covering 1/4–1/2 of the seed, membranous, sparsely to moderately appressed-pubescent