Manulea tomentosa is a perennial herb, branching from the base and along the stems, to become bushy shrublets 600 to 800 mm tall. Stems are leafy to the tip, erect or decumbent, with spreading, white, acute hairs (villous), up to 1–2 mm long.

The fleshy leaves are opposite, base connate, often crowded and sometimes becoming more distant upwards and passing into the inflorescence. Leaves narrowing upwards, broadly spathulate (spoon-shaped) to obovate (egg-shaped), toothed on the margins, both surfaces villous (with shaggy hairs) or slightly hairy, reddish, and margins are rolled back a little in the young leaves.

This plant produces a many-flowered inflorescence, a crowded thyrse, in a finger-like shape, made up of often dull brownish yellow to deep orange flowers. The corolla tube is hairy on the outside, and has longitudinally rolled petals, hairs inside the throat, and stamens inserted in the upper third of the corolla tube. The corolla lobes are quite as long as broad, with rounded tips. It flowers in early spring to midsummer (August to December).