It is an upright shrub with narrow leaves, purple pea flowers and stems with matted hairs.

Hovea purpurea is a shrub to 3 m (9.8 ft) high, stems with brownish to dark grey, short, densely matted, curled or more or less straight, flattened to nearly spreading hairs.

The leaves strap like to narrow-elliptic, 1.2–7 cm (0.47–2.76 in) long and 4–17 mm (0.16–0.67 in) wide, flat either side of a recessed midrib, blunt to sharp at the base, margins curved, apex rounded or almost pointed.

[2][3][4][5] Hovea purpurea was first formally described in 1827 by Robert Sweet and the description was published in Flora Australasica.

In Victoria on the upper Genoa River in East Gippsland and in South Australia at Mount Remarkable.