The shell is moderately large for the genus (maximum length 55 mm) and fusiform. The spire is moderately high to moderately low, consisting of four and one-half shouldered postnuclear whorls and a protoconch of undetermined nature. The suture is unimpressed, but the region surrounding the suture is deeply excavated. The body whorl is large, constituting 70 to 80 percent of the entire shell, and roughly fusoid. The aperture is subcircular, with no indication of an anal sulcus. The outer apertural lip is strongly erect and finely dentate; five short, bluntly bifid projections on the lip reflect the varical spines, and weak lirations extend into the aperture from the labial denticles. The columella!' lip is detached, weakly erect, smooth, and regular; at its anterior end is an oblique sulcus followed by a thickening. The siphonal canal is moderately long, narrowly open to the right, and strongly, distally recurved.
The body whorl bears six spinose varices. Other axial sculpture is lacking. Spiral sculpture consists of alternating major and minor cords and numerous low, scabrous threads. Where the major cords intersect the varices, moderately long, narrowly open, distally palmate, digitate projections are developed. Starting at the shoulder margin there are generally five such major projections of almost equal length on the body and four on the canal, these sharply diminishing in length anteriorly. Above the first spine, on the shoulder, a ventrally fimbriate webbing connects the uppermost spine with the preceding whorl. A moderately developed, ventrally fimbriate webbing also connects all the spines on the body. The minor cords develop tiny, ventrally bent spinelets. There are two or three tiny spinelets between the body and the canal. Shell color ranges from blackish-brown to chestnut-brown to almost white, generally with some white following each varix.

Specimens from old (nineteenth-century) collections differ in having the webbing between the shoulder spine and the preceding whorl less well-developed, giving the spire a peculiarly slender, isolated appearance. They also have four, rather than five, spines on the body.

From the Philippines, Indonesia, and the Red Sea.