Synonyms: maroccanum, seriatus… Many named variants. The two last basal cords are smooth; presence of additional cords just before the peristome. The species is often marbled with white on brownish background.

Paolo G. Albano: « You can recognize it [a juvenile] by the lack of a fully formed last whorl, without peristome and base which are diagnostic. The appearance of the shell is therefore truncated, with a very angulated periphery of the last whorl. »

Protoconch. The apical area is smooth; the axial ribs are markedly sinking under the spiral keel. All the other members of the genus in Mediterranean have an egg-shell covered with a mesh of cruciform tubercles, and their axials are not, or minimally, interrupted.