Haworthia pygmae is a small proliferating species forming flattened groups about 6-10 cm in diameter (but often larger in cultivation) The name "pygmaea" refers to small size, but the plant has similar size as other species.
The plant is found in a small area around Great Brak and Mossel Bay in Eastern Cape. In nature it occurs on rocky quartz outcrops often among grasses near to Haworthia parksiana and Haworthia kingiana. The leaves of this plant are 2,5-3 cm long (or a little more in cultivation) and up to1, 8 cm wide, glossy dark green or olive green often shaded of pink with cold weather, retused, narrowly oval, the leaf-end areas are flattish and the leaf-tips rounded-triangular; leaf surfaces pellucid scabrid or papillate with raised tubercles, occasionally very papillose with 4-5 pale longitudinal lines.