It grows in swampy ground ...is plentiful in the English gardens, and was generally taken for an Hypericum, till it lately produced, in several collections near London, its elegant flowers."

Melaleuca hypericifolia is a large woody shrub or small tree growing to 6 m (20 ft) in height, with greyish papery bark.

The flower spikes appear in spring and summer and are followed by fruit which are woody, oval-shaped capsules 5–6.5 mm (0.2–0.3 in) long with the sepals remaining as teeth around the rim.

[2][3][4]The species was first formally described by English botanist James Edward Smith in 1797 in Transactions of the Linnean Society of London from material collected in "swampy ground" in New South Wales.

[8] It has caused problems in some areas where it has spread from gardens into bushland in other states and care should be taken with the species in southern Victoria.