It is a shrub or tree with narrowly elliptic to lance-shaped leaves, and deep indigo-blue and white, pea-like flowers.

Hovea longipes is a shrub or tree that typically grows to a height of up to 5 m (16 ft), with many parts densely covered with yellow, tan or grey hairs, and with red glandular structures near the leaves and bracts.

Flowering occurs from March to September and the fruit is an irregular spherical pod 10–15 mm (0.39–0.59 in) long and wide.

[2][3] Hovea longipes was first formally described in 1837 by George Bentham in Stephan Endlicher's Enumeratio plantarum quas in Novae Hollandiae ora austro-occidentali ad fluvium Cygnorum et in sinu Regis Georgii collegit Carolus Liber Baro de Hügel.

[4] [5] This species of pea grows in rainforest, scrub and woodland on sandy soils from near the Iron Range National Park in north Queensland to Lake Glenbawn in north-eastern New South Wales.