Hibbertia rufa is a weak, prostrate to scrambling shrub with wiry branches that sometimes form adventitious roots. The leaves are linear to lance-shaped, long and wide on a petiole long. The edges of the leaves are rolled under and there is a tuft of hairs on the tip. The flowers are arranged on the ends of short side-shoots on a peduncle long, with linear to triangular bracts long at the base. The sepals are joined at the base, the outer lobes long and the inner lobes longer and broader. The petals are yellow, egg-shaped with the narrower end towards the base, long with a deep notch at the tip. There are three or four stamens in a single cluster on one side of the two glabrous carpels, each with four ovules.
