Plants spiny shrubs up to 20 cm tall, fairly much branched from the base; stems almost glabrous when young but with some hairs bout 1 mm long at the nodes. Leaves indistinctly petiolaes, 1-4 mm long; blades oblanceolate to narrowly obovate, 40-55 mm long, 14-23 mm wide, almost glabrous but spreading to appressed hairs up to 1 mm long present along the veins and margins, tips mucronate with spiney tips 1-4 mm long; axillary spines 4 per leaf axil, 13-17 mm long, on a common stalks. Inflorescences apical and spike-like, composed of strongly contracted upper nodes with solitary, axillary flowers; bracts lanceolate, leaf-like, 20-27 mm long, about 5.5 mm wide, sometimes lower surfaces with glands near the base tips mucronate with spinose tipse up to 5 mm long; bracteoles narrowly lanceolate-mucronate, with a small blade transformed into spins 16-20 mm long. Calyces greeb or whitish green, glabrous, outer lobes equal, 16-17 mm long, including a spin of about half the lengh; corollas cream orange, 25-34 mm long, lobes unequal, tubes narrow, 25-27 mm long. Capsules with 2 seeds, up to 12 mm long, tapering into long beaks, glabrous.
Barleria ermanthemoides grows in duciduous bushland at 150-1580 m. It is known from regions N1, C2, and S2 of the Flora of Somalia, and from Eritream Ehtiopiam eastern tropical Africam Niger and Cameroun.