It is a shrub with crowded, linear leaves and pale green creamy-white flowers.

The flowers are in sessile groups about 100 mm (3.9 in) long on the ends of branches and are pale green to creamy-white with a white to pink style.

Flowering mainly occurs from October to February and the fruit is slightly warty follicle about 9 mm (0.35 in) long.

[3][4][5] This species is similar to G. gariwerdensis that has less crowded leaves and a pistil 7.0–8.5 mm (0.28–0.33 in) long, and to G. neurophylla subsp.

[5] Grevillea alpivaga was first formally described by French botanist Michel Gandoger in the Bulletin de la Société Botanique de France in 1919, from plant material collected from the Victorian Alps by Carl Walter.