Dubautia ciliolata is an erect, many-branched shrub reaching up to 1.8 meters in height. Its stems are rigid and covered with a range of textures from hispid or hispidulous to canescent or grayish silky. Sometimes, they appear glutinous and sooty. The leaves can be ternate, opposite, or alternate near the inflorescence. They are erect, closely pressed to the stem, varying from imbricate to lax and spreading or even reflexed. These leaves are thick and stiff, ranging from flat to markedly involute and grooved. They are lanceolate to narrowly elliptic or lanceolate-oblong, measuring 0.4-3 cm in length and 0.1-0.65 cm in width. The leaves are 1-nerved and vary from glabrous to moderately hispid, with sparsely and minutely glandular surfaces to rough and glutinous. The margins are entire and hispid-ciliolate to scabrid-ciliolate, with an acute apex and a usually rounded base. The plant is sessile. The flower heads are cymosely arranged in elongate, compound, paniculate inflorescences that range from 1.5 to 12 cm long and 1.5 to 6 cm wide. The peduncles vary from filiform and flexible to stouter, hispidulous, puberulent, and glandular, sometimes showing a purplish hue. The ultimate peduncles are usually 0.3-2.5 cm long. The receptacle is flat to convex with a false involucre consisting of a single series of 4-12 peripheral, strongly connate receptacular bracts. These bracts are 5-9 mm long, sparsely to conspicuously hispidulous to hirsute, and sparsely to densely glandular. Each head contains 4-18 florets with yellow corollas, typically 4-6 mm long, glabrous and eglandular on the tube. The fruit is a simple, dry achene 3.5 to 4.5 mm long and glabrate to sparsely strigillose. The pappus usually comprises 14-21 very narrowly linear, ascending-setose bristles measuring 4.5-6.5 mm in length. It occurs in open, dry habitats ranging from shrubland to Metrosideros and subalpine forests, especially on lava at 900 – 3,200 meters.