The narrow, acutely pointed leaves of Nivenia binata crowd at the stem-tips, spread a little in tight and rigidly erect fans. The fans are distichous, the sessile leaves of each fan overlapping at the base.

The sword-shaped leaves have entire margins and no midribs. The pale green to blue-green blades are smooth, only about 5 mm wide.

The stem surfaces are rough with scars of fallen leaves and somewhat two-edged (Vlok and Schutte-Vlok, 2015; Bond and Goldblatt, 1984; JSTOR; iNaturalist).