The shell is small (maximum length 15 mm) and stoutly fusiform. The spire is moderately high, consisting of one nuclear whorl and four or five convex postnuclear whorls. The suture is un-impressed. The body whorl is of moderate size and broadly fusoid. The aperture is of moderate size, with a shallow, narrow anal sulcus. The outer apertural lip is slightly erect and smooth, both at its margin and within. The columellar lip is entirely adherent, smooth, and weakly callused. The siphonal canal is moderately short, fused, almost straight, and sharply, dorsally recurved.
The bodywhorl bears 11 or 12 delicate varices, these shaped like erect lamellae; one or two on each whorl may be double. Spiral sculpture consists of six moderately strong major cords on the body, two on the canal, and minor cords between consecutive major cords. At an imaginary shoulder margin on an essentially unshouldered shell the lamelliform varices each make a right angle, imparting the appearance of a shouldered whorl. Shell color is white to dirty ivory.
The lamellose shell sculpture and short, stout form suggest affinity with the southern trophons (e.g. T. geversianus Pallas, 1774); the fused canal implies an ocenebrine relationship; and the radula favors neither of these possibilities. Thus, this species is placed here conditionally.

Dundas Bay, Alaska, to San Diego, California (fide Oldroyd, 1927).