« Shell small, bulging, white or yellow coloured. Whorls 6, with transversal striae and longitudinal ribs that become obsolete; suture inconspicuous; first whorl round, glabrous; columella folded twice; labial margin sharp, internally striated. » – A. Scacchi: Catalogus Conchyliorum regni Neapolitani, Naples 1836, footnote 11 page 10. Variations affect spire height, colour density, and also the sculpture: the axials that can extend along the whole surface (variant “leontocroma” Brusina, pictured here), and generate tubercles at the intersection with the spirals (unnamed var.), or no tubercles (var. “mediterranea” Misfud); a last variant is devoid of radials (Amati & al.: “Revision of the Recent Mediterranean species of Mitromorpha Carpenter, 1865 (Gastropoda, Conoidea, Mitromorphidae) with the description of seven new species”, Zootaxa 3931(2), p.160).

The species can be confused with young Episcomitra cornicula (Linnaeus, 1758), and differs from it by the lack of punctiform spiral sculpture on the first whorls. Above, a 4mm long cornicula from 50m deep, Scilla, Messina Strait, SW. Italy, with the punctiform spirals, particularly marked on the first and second teleoconch whorls. Also, the pale band is a rare feature in columbellaria, and is more easily encountered in young cornicula where it appears in subsutural position instead of at the periphery, as it can be seen on the previous shell from Crete. Finally, the largest diameter is more adapically placed in columbellaria.

Protoconch paucispiral (1,25 whorl after the egg shell), with some sparse microgranules on a smooth surface; transition protoconch - teleoconch abrupt (1). The spiral cords are nodulose in the first whorl, and become smooth on the body whorl (2). The radial microsculpture, slightly opisthocline in the first teleoconch whorls (2), becomes orthocline near the suture of the body whorl (2), and strongly prosocline near the anterior extremity (3). No posterior notch on the aperture (4).