It is an erect to spreading shrub with elliptic to egg-shaped leaves, and white, tube-shaped flowers arranged singly or in groups of up to three in leaf axils.

Flowering occurs from April to June and in September and October, and the fruit is an elliptic drupe 3.5–4.2 mm (0.14–0.17 in) long and glabrous.

[2][3] This species was first formally described in 1993 by Jocelyn Marie Powell who gave it the name Leucopogon trichostylus in the journal Telopea from specimens collected by John Beaumont Williams, near Armidale in 1984.

[3][4] In 2020, Michael Hislop, Darren Crayn and Caroline Puente-Lelievre transferred the species to Styphelia as S. trichostyla in Australian Systematic Botany.

[3] Styphelia trichostyla grows on rocky outcrops or on cliff edges, sometimes in forest, and is found on the Darling Downs, Moreton and Burnett districts of Queensland and on the North Coast and Northern Tablelands of New South Wales.