It is a prostrate to sprawling shrub with serrated to pinnatifid leaves, the end lobes broadly triangular and often sharply-pointed, and clusters of brown flowers with a dark purplish-black style.

The flowers are borne on one side of a rachis 20–45 mm (0.79–1.77 in) long and brown, the style purplish black with a green pollen presenter.

[5][6] In 1889, von Mueller raised the variety to species status as G. scortechinii in the Second Systematic Census of Australian Plants.

In 1989, Donald McGillivray described two subspecies of G. scortechinii and the names are accepted by the Australian Plant Census: Black grevillea grows in woodland often on granite or in remnant roadside vegetation.

scortechenii is listed as "critically endangered" under the Australian Government Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999.