This leafy evergreen perennial herb can produce quite a big lanky spread and can reach a height of up to 1.5 m tall. It has wide, attractive leaves in opposite pairs up the stem. The leaves are more lush in appearance and somewhat less rough to the touch than in other scabiosa plants, and their margins are coarsely toothed with narrow upper segments. The stems are hollow and densely softly hairy.

Flowers are white, with white stamens protruding, and are crowded at the end of slender leafless stalks up to 300 mm long.

A closer look reveals that each flower head is surrounded at the base by one to two rows of bracts and that the calyx lobes have long bristles. Each flower head is made up of many small flowers and these individual flowers are crowded together, with the looser flowers along the outside having longer petals that form a frilly edge, and the flowers in the centre being much smaller and compact to form a tight button effect. Flowering period is throughout summer, starting in October and usually finishing around April. After flowering, the heads turn into tight, bristly balls that fall apart as the seeds ripen, and these rounded bristle-heads slowly fall apart as the seeds ripen to be blown away by the wind.