Podalyria burchellii is a willowy to dense, much-branched shrub, growing from 600 mm up to 2.5 m tall. Leaves are dark green, narrowly elliptic to ovate to almost circular, and shiny, with closely pressed hairs above, beneath they are covered in white woolly hairs.

Flowers 1 or 2 per inflorescence, with a large standard petal, corolla is pink to dark pink or magenta and has a white nectar guide, which is rarely marked pink in the center. Flowering is in autumn and early winter (from April to June).

Fruits pods are ovate to obliquely oblong, inflated and covered with erect white to rufous hairs. Seeds are uniform and brown. 

Podalyria burchellii is a variable species and until 2011 was differentiated from P. velutina by the shape and size and hairiness of their leaves and by the hairs on their seed pods: the leaves of P. velutina are three times longer than broad, they are ellipitic and its pods are covered with hairs that are much longer than those of P. burchellii. However, these variations fall within the variation range of P. burchellii, and P. velutina occurs within the distribution range of P. burchelli and they are now considered to be synonymous.