Depending on the local conditions these plants are compact or sprawling, often starting life under a shrub.
In spite of the name (“with short leaves”), with a length of 3.5-5 cm the leaves are by no means the shortest in the genus.
The flowers are about 4 cm in diameter and purple with white stamens or (more rarely) cream-coloured with purple-brown stamens; they appear from June though September.
The plants occur from the Cedarberg to the western Little Karoo on open slopes or in dry, open scrub.
This species is probably more variable in flower and growth form than any other Cephalophyllum.
