Gnidia pinifolia is a shrub, up to 1 m tall, arising from a woody base, with erect, semi-hardwood stems and smooth to rough bark with lenticels. Branches are rather slender, forked, fastigiate (growing more or less parallel to the main stem), upright and glabrous (hairless), with leaf-scars that are moderately prominent and close to each other. The leaves are small, alternately positioned, acerose (needle-like), narrowly linear-oblong, pungent-acuminate (tapering to a sharp point) ascending, crowded at the branch tips; the involucral leaves are wider, green, the leaf apices acute, becoming brown or reddish.

The flowers are in showy clusters of about 10, at the branch tips, pinkish opening to white. The flowers consist of a long calyx tube, the hypanthium, which is villous (densely covered in shaggy hairs), the lower quarter is inflated and triangular when cut in half, the upper part is nearly cylindrical. At the tip of the tube there is a pointed star, made up of 4 calyx lobes that look like petals. The true petals are the 4 smaller, cream coloured lobes on top of the white calyx lobes, they are finger-like, fleshy and densely hairy. The anthers are oblong, obtuse, yellow to orange-brown, one row can be seen at the mouth of the tube and a second row is hidden inside the calyx tube; the ovary is shortly stipitate (has a short stalk) and glabrous; the style is nearly as long as the calyx-tube; and the stigma is capitate (ends in a compact head). The flowers are often pink in bud, the tubes are white flushed with pink or randomly stained pink, the petals inside the star have an off-white to yellowish colour, the anthers are yellow. The bases of the tubes often appear deep maroon, but this is caused by the involucral leaves that cover the base of the tube. Overall, they give an attractive soft colour effect. Flowering can occur at any time of the year.