The shell is of moderate size (maximum length 22 mm) and broadly fusiform. The spire is high, consisting of five or six angulate postnuclear whorls and a protoconch of undetermined nature. The suture is generally hidden by material making up the shoulder. The body whorl is large and broadly fusoid. The aperture is small and ovate, forming a raised peristome that flares out over the columella and posteriorly, where it forms a thin, vertical flange; behind this a portion of the body arises at right angles to the remainder to form a thin flange, the partition. A long, hollow tube, arising medially in the last intervarical space and reflected outward and toward the preceding varix, houses the anal siphon; earlier tubes are sealed and are generally broken off, leaving stumps. The siphonal canal is moderately long, broad above, slender and tubular below, and sealed for its entire length. The body whorl bears four thin, sharp varices, each made up of two shell laminae. The lamina on the receding side of each varix projects above the lamina on the leading side, forming a webbed portion of the varix at the base of the body and the upper canal. Where the varix crosses the shoulder margin a flat, moderately long, dorsally and inhooked spine is formed. Additional axial sculpture consists of a low, ephemeral ridge, extending from the base of the anal tube to the base of the body; the base of the anal tube corresponds in position to a portion of a varix on the preceding whorl, and the juxtaposition of these two features bisects the shoulder. Spiral sculpture consists of five subobsolete cords on the body and two additional cords on the upper portion of the canal. The shell of this species, as of other typhine species, appears to be composed of a patchwork of various portions of shell, these portions delimited by distinct microscopic suture lines.
Shell color is pale purple-white to mauve, with faint red-brown spiral lines alternating with the spiral cords; the newest portions of the shell, as well as the webbing on each varix and the distal ends of full-length tubes, are white. A red-brown suffusion colors the tubular distal end of the siphonal canal. The interior of the aperture is porcelaneous white, with pale red-brown markings on the margin of the outer apertural lip.
Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic coast of northern Africa. Gertman (1969) figured a specimen that he identified as this species from off Nevis, Leeward Islands, and several others have been reported from the Gulf of Mexico, as far west as Texas.

Habitat: it lives in the infra and circalittoral zones, on coarse substrata and fine gravel, even among Posidonia oceanica and in a coralligenous habitat. Never common.
Distribution: It is collected in a large part of the Mediterranean where it is always uncommon.
Notes: for a long time this species was known under the synonym Typhis sowerbyi Broderip, 1833. Very beautiful shell, not much variable in its outline and in its colour pattern, unmistakable in form, brittle. It is distinguishable due to four varices expanded, foliaceus, present all over the whorls. Among the varices there are spines fistulous, tubular, sometimes very long, in which the exhaling siphon goes along. Surface crossed by one fine spiral streaking. Peristome oval in form characterized by one fringe thickened and raised. Siphonal canal long, closed, overturned back. From dirty white to uniform dark brown in colour, there can be rarely found melanic specimens. Protoconch, about 1.5 whorls, smooth and brown in colour.
Yuvenile specimens are easily recognizable due to the fistulous spines already present on the first whorl of teleconch.
The varieties minor and fulva, created by Pallary, have no taxonomic value. The variety elongates set up by Settepassi, reaches 25 mm in height.
The adult specimens average measures are around 16-18 mm in height.