Aromatic, resprouting, rigid shrublet, with many stems from a woody underground stem (caudex). Leaves small, opposite, stiff and lance-shaped, recurving towards tip; small, stemless, flat-topped clusters of white star-shaped flowers.

The bean-shaped seeds ripen to a shiny black with a waxy eliasome body at one end, and are ejected by an elastic mechanism of the inner wall of the fruit, to a metre or more; seeds are gathered and buried by ants, which eat the protein-rich elaisomes, leaving the black seeds to be triggered to germinate by the smoke of veld fires.

Plants of the Rutaceae family are dotted with oil glands which emit a range of distinctive scents, often so typical that species can be identified by them.