Philotheca scabra is a species of flowering plant in the family Rutaceae and is endemic to New South Wales.

It is a small shrub with variably shaped leaves, depending on subspecies, and single white to pink flowers arranged on the ends of branchlets.

The leaves are sessile, 10–15 mm (0.39–0.59 in) long and either more or less cylindrical and folded lengthwise or narrow oblong-elliptic and concave on the lower side.

[2][3] This philotheca was first formally described in 1844 by Joseph Paxton who gave it the name Eriostemon scaber and published the description in Paxton's Magazine of Botany from a specimen "in the nursery of Messrs. Henderson, of Pine Apple Place, who received it from the gardens of Baron Hugel, at Vienna, about twelve months back".

scabra respectively, in a later edition of the same journal:[7] The names of the subspecies are accepted by the Australian Plant Census: Philotheca scabra grows in heath and forest on the coast and nearby ranges of New South Wales between Sydney and the Nerriga and Nowra districts.