The shell is moderately large (maximum length 75 mm) and fusiform. The spire is high, consisting of one angulate nuclear whorl and six or seven convex postnuclear whorls. The suture is impressed. The body whorl is fusoid and of moderate size, but with an exaggeratedly large appearance owing to its large, winged varices. The aperture is subcircular, with a barely perceptible anal sulcus. The outer apertural lip is erect and smooth to broadly undulate; its inner surface is very weakly denticulate. The columellar lip is smooth, adherent above, and detached and strongly erect below. The siphonal canal is moderately long, sealed, bent to the right, and dorsally recurved.
The body whorl bears three broad, digitate, winglike varices. Intervarical axial sculpture is lacking. Spiral sculpture consists of five broad major cords, these ephemeral intervarically, apparent on the trailing edge of the varix, and ending in short to moderately long marginal digitations. Several minor cords are erratically distributed over the shell surface, one generally associated with the anteriormost major cord. The leading edge of each varix is laminate. Shell color is generally brown, varying from dark purple-brown in the form with long varical digitations to pale tan-brown in the more broadly winged form. The brown color is consistently strongest on the spiral cords over the varices. The aperture is porcelaneous white.

Two forms of this species are known: one form is smooth, with very broad varical flanges and broad, rather brief, varical digitations; the other has a more scabrous shell surface and moderately broad varical flanges with longer, more slender digitations.

Monterey Bay, California, to Bahia Todos Santos, Baja California.