It is an erect, bushy shrub with lance-shaped, elliptic or egg-shaped leaves and tube-shaped white or cream-coloured flowers in crowded, leafy heads at the ends of branches.

Epacris paludosa is an erect bushy shrub that typically grows to a height of 0.1–1.6 m (3.9 in – 5 ft 3.0 in) and has hairy branchlets with prominent leaf scars.

[2][3][4][5] Epacris paludosa was first formally described in 1810 by Robert Brown in his Prodromus Florae Novae Hollandiae et Insulae Van Diemen.

[8] Swamp heath grows in swampy areas and wet heath south from Sydney and the Blue Mountains in New South Wales, to eastern Victoria and Flinders Island in Tasmania, growing from sea level up to 1,700 m (5,600 ft).

[2][3][9] In the Sydney region, E. paludosa is associated with such plants as native broom (Viminaria juncea), marsh banksia (Banksia paludosa), and woolly teatree Leptospermum lanigerum.