It has thin, rough bark, narrow lance-shaped leaves, white flowers and relatively large fruit that remain on the plant at maturity.

The flowers are white, 10–20 mm (0.39–0.79 in) wide and are borne singly on short side shoots from adjacent leaf axils.

[2][3] Leptospermum rupicola was first formally described in 1989 by Joy Thompson in the journal Telopea, based on plant material collected by Ernest Constable at Nellie's Glen near Blackheath in 1957.

[3] This tea-tree grows in shrubby communities near high sandstone cliffs in central-eastern New South Wales.

[2][3] A group of about a dozen plants survive in an abandoned railway cutting at Lawson in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales.