This species was known to Puff & Buchner (1994) only from the type, from "the province of Imerina". They distinguished this by its triangular stipule, medium-sized leaves, short calyx lobes, and notably short corollas with the tube 2-3 mm long and the lobes ca. 1.5 mm long. Puff & Buchner stated that Danais breviflora has shorter corollas than any other species of Danais, but actually they found the corollas of Danais ligustrifolia and Danais fragrans to reach similarly short lengths.

Several additional flowering specimens are here included in this species, based on these characters. On some of these specimens the stipules at some distal nodes and at the base of the inflorescences are shortly to distinctly bilobed, while stipules at some lower nodes are entire. The flower color, habitat, and elevational range were unknown to Puff & Buchner; the corollas of the additional specimens included here are described as variously white or white with yellow lobes. This species is quite similar in general aspect and several details to Danais ligustrifolia, from which it is separated only by corolla size; the fruits of Danais breviflora have not been documented, but fruiting specimens may exist but be identified as Danais ligustrifolia.