The leaves are variable, they may be flat and thick, narrowly egg-shaped widest in the middle, more or less needle-shaped or triangular in cross-section.

The seed are pale brown with darker streaks, are broadly egg-shaped to almost triangular or circular and 12–20 mm (0.47–0.79 in) long.

[2][3][4][5][6] Hakea cygna was first formally described by Byron Barnard Lamont in 1987 and published in the Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society.

Hakea cygna is widely distributed from Geraldton to Ravensthorpe in the south-east and east to Cape Arid.

needlei is classified as "Priority Two" by the Western Australian Government Department of Parks and Wildlife,[5] meaning that it is poorly known and from only one or a few locations.