Plants have a procumbent growth habit, with branches radiating from a central main branch, forming dense, tight mats, up to 3 m in diameter. The older, dry, dead, branch remnants persist for some time. The branches are 10–20 mm in diameter and are covered in dark, blackish brown, more or less egg-shaped, papery bracts. The leaves are leathery and firm, ascending, grouped at the branch ends. The leaf petioles are yellowish green, 200–250 mm long and 5 mm in diameter, swollen at the base. The leaf blades are elliptic, 100–250 mm long, and 50–70 mm broad, folded inwards, with a prominent yellowish green midvein. The margins are entire, horny and yellowish green and with a blunt tip.

The inflorescence is without a stalk (sessile), and when fully opened, is shaped like a crater or shallow mug, 120–150 mmlong and 130–160 mm in diameter, densely covered on the outside with woolly, white, papery bracts, 60–70 mm long and 10–15 mm broad, in 6 or 7 series, arranged like tiles on a roof (imbricate). The inside of the bracts are pink, becoming whitish at the base, sometimes entirely white. The individual flowers are straight to slightly bent, creamy white to pinkish or white, 85–90 mm long; the tube 10–15 mm long. The 4 anthers are 15 mm long; the filaments 2–3 mm long. The style is straight to slightly curved. Seed are oblong, brownish, hairy. Flowering time is mid- to late summer (January to March).