It is an erect to spreading shrub usually with linear leaves, and oval to more or less spherical clusters of glabrous pale green to greenish-pink flowers with a pink or white style.

Grevillea bracteosa is an erect to spreading shrub that typically grows to a height of 0.5 to 2 metres (1.6 to 6.6 ft) but does not form a lignotuber.

[2][3] Grevillea bracteosa was first formally described in 1848 by Carl Meissner in Johann Georg Christian Lehmann's Plantae Preissianae from specimens collected in the Swan River Colony by James Drummond.

[6] In 2008, Peter M. Olde and Neil R. Marriott described two subspecies in the journal Nuytsia and the names are accepted by the Australian Plant Census: Bracted grevillea grows in shrubland and sometimes heath and is found from near Geraldton to near Mogumber in the Avon Wheatbelt, Geraldton Sandplains and Jarrah Forest biogeographic regions of south-western Western Australia.

[9][11] This species of grevillea will grow in a wide range of well-drained soils and is frost and dought tolerant once established.