It is an erect shrub with linear leaves and yellow flowers with ten to twelve stamens arranged around three glabrous carpels.

Hibbertia virgata is an erect, rarely low-lying shrub that typically grows to a height of up to 1.5 m (4 ft 11 in), its branches sometimes covered with woolly hairs.

The flowers are usually arranged on the ends of short side shoots and are sessile with hairy bracts 1.2–3.5 mm (0.047–0.138 in) long at the base.

[2][3][4][5] Hibbertia virgata was first formally described in 1817 by Augustin Pyramus de Candolle from an unpublished description by Robert Brown.

It is widespread in Victoria and south-eastern South Australia but is rare in Tasmania, where it is only known from a few locations in the north and north-east of the state.