It is an erect shrub with hairy, deep reddish-purple branches, hairy, needle-shaped leaves, and cream-coloured to ochre heads of flowers arranged in a hemispherical corymb.

The leaves are needle-shaped, 15–25 mm (0.59–0.98 in) long and 0.5–0.7 mm (0.020–0.028 in) wide, the upper surface of the leaves glossy green, the edges rolled under and the lower surface densely covered with white, cottony hairs.

The corymbs are hemispherical 10–100 mm (0.39–3.94 in) in diameter with between eighty and one hundred heads.

[2] Cassinia nivalis was first formally described in 2005 by Anthony Edward Orchard in Australian Systematic Botany from specimens collected by Cliff Beauglehole in the Barkly-Goulburn State Forest in 1985.

[4] Ochre cassinia grows in mountain forest and coastal woodland in eastern Victoria.