Putterlickia pyracantha on occasion, grows as a small bushy tree 4–6 m tall, but is usually a spiny shrub 2–3 m high. Bark is often concealed by a grey waxy layer that peels off longitudinally to expose small pale lenticels. Stems often arching. Branchlets are angular and red-brown. The spines are sharp, robust or slender, straight, up to 50 mm long, with or without leaves. Leaves are leathery, hairless, dark green, net-veining less visible above than it is below, apex usually rounded.

Flowers are star-like, with cream-coloured, spreading petals, up to 10 mm in diameter, and are in loose, branched, spreading heads, about 60–100 mm wide, on every individual, slender stalk, with the leaves, on dwarf spur-branchlets. Flowering time is in early summer (November to January).

Fruits are obconical capsules, 10–20 mm long, with 3 woody lobes, cream-coloured to pink or red, pendulous, on the end of slender jointed stalks, up 30 mm long. Seeds are enveloped completely by an orange aril and are ripe in late summer to winter (February to August). The fruit lobes assume a purplish colour on their outer surface. The lobe margin is thickened, the seams prominent where they were firmly attached to each other, when the seeds were developing inside the ovary.