Much-branched, usually stiff, neatly-rounded shrub (sometimes in a looser, laxer form) up to 90cm. Leaves are crowded and heath-like, 5-8mm long; minute flowers are densely crowded above an incolucre of small brown scale-like bracts, to form a posy head 4-7mm across; flowerheads are often massed towards tips of branches, especially in the coarser form found near the sea.

This species is very variable in habit, some plants with short, flowering side-branches up the stems, others with flowers at branch tips.