It is an erect shrub with glandular hairs embedded in a sticky layer on its branches and leaves, needle-shaped leaves, and white to yellowish heads of flowers arranged in a flat-topped corymb.

The heads are arranged in groups of several hundred in a flat-topped corymb 50–120 mm (2.0–4.7 in) in diameter.

Flowering occurs from January to March and the achenes are 1.0–1.2 mm (0.039–0.047 in) long with a pappus of twelve to sixteen bristles.

[2][3][4] Cassinia maritima was first formally described in 2004 by Anthony Edward Orchard in Australian Systematic Botany from specimens collected by near the Cann River in 2004.

[6] Coast cassinia grows in the shrub layer of scrub and forest in near-coastal areas from Eden in south-eastern New South Wales to far far north-eastern Victoria.