Plantago princeps var. anomala is a small shrub with hollow, erect, or ascending stems that can grow from approximately 2 to 250 cm in length, often branching and covered with young internodes that are ± woolly with reddish-brown hairs. The leaves are tufted near the stem tips, thick and coriaceous, with blades that transition seamlessly from the petioles. These blades are narrowly oblong-lanceolate to narrowly elliptic or sometimes elliptic, measuring 15–30 cm in length and 1.5–5 cm in width, with an acute to acuminate apex and a base that narrows slightly and is sessile or tapers gradually to a winged petiole. The leaf surfaces are glabrous, though the lower surfaces can sometimes be appressed pilose, with margins that are minutely and remotely denticulate or entirely smooth. The leaves have (3–)5–9 veins that converge slightly toward the base. Petioles can extend up to 5 cm and are winged without stipules. The flowers occur on scapes, typically several, ranging from 10 to 50 cm in length, with spikes (7–)11–28 cm long that are glabrous to sparsely pilose. These flowers are densely packed, occasionally forming an interrupted spike, each protruding at nearly a 90° angle from the axis. The bracts are lanceolate, 1.2–3 mm long, glabrous, but may be woolly at the base, with no bracteoles present. The flowers are bisexual (perfect), with a calyx of four subequal, distinct, elliptic to elliptic-ovate sepals, 1.8–3.2 mm long, primarily scarious except along the midrib, and glabrous or ciliate. The corolla is salverform with four lobes, scarious, persisting into fruit, covering the upper part of the capsule, with lobes that spread out, measuring 1.5–2 mm in length. There are four stamens alternating with the corolla tubes, with filaments fused to the corolla tube and long-exserted anthers that are dithecal and open longitudinally. The superior ovary is 2-carpellate, seemingly with two to four ovules and axile placentation, ending in a slender, terminal style. The fruit is a narrowly ovoid-ellipsoid capsule, 3–3.8 mm long, slightly exserting from the calyx and opening at about two-thirds to its base or slightly more. The capsules contain three to four black, ellipsoid to oblong-ellipsoid seeds, each 1.5–2.1 mm long, with a surface covered by a mucilaginous membrane and a well-developed, firm, translucent endosperm. It inhabits steep slopes, rock walls, or bases of waterfalls between elevations of 800-1,100 meters.