[4][5] Most parts of the plant, including the twigs, leaves and fruit, are clothed in fine pale brown hairs.

[4][5] The inflorescence is a raceme (an unbranched spike) produced in the leaf axils or at the ends of branches.

[4][5] The hairy polyosma was first described in 1918 by the Australian botanist Cyril Tenison White, based on material collected by the Reverend Norman Michael, an enthusiastic collector of botanic specimens in Queensland.

[2][4] White's description was published in Botany Bulletin, a publication of the then Queensland Department of Agriculture.

[5] Polyosma hirsuta is restricted to a small part of northeastern Queensland, on the coast and adjacent highlands from near Cooktown in the north to about Tully in the south.