Spyridium nitidum is an erect, spindly shrub that typically grows to a height of up to about 2 m (6 ft 7 in), its young stems silky-hairy.

Both sides of the leaves are covered with silky hairs, and there are lance-shaped stipules 1.5–3 mm (0.059–0.118 in) long at the base.

The flowers are white about 5 mm (0.20 in) in diameter, and borne in clusters 2–3 mm (0.079–0.118 in) in diameter on the ends of branchlets with a single creamy-white leaf and several sticky brown bracts at the base.

[2][3][4] Spyridium nitidum was first formally described in 1957 by Norman Arthur Wakefield in The Victorian Naturalist.

[6] Shining spyridium grows in south-eastern South Australia, including on the Eyre Peninsula and Kangaroo Island, and in the Big Desert area of Victoria, near the border with South Australia.