Dubautia paleata is an upright (erect) shrub that grows 0.3–2.5 meters tall. The stems markedly spread pilose or hirsute to appressed hispid or grayish silky to glabrate. The leaves are opposite or ternate, lanceolate to narrowly oblong-elliptic or oblanceolate, measuring 3.5-20 cm long and 8-35 mm wide. They are usually 7-15-nerved and sometimes visibly reticulate with elongated areola, especially in larger forms. Both surfaces of the leaves are appressed short-hispid or grayish silky to velutinous to spreading long-hirsute. The margins are often revolute, especially in smaller forms, remotely and inconspicuously denticulate from apex to below middle, sometimes ciliolate. The apex is acute to slightly acuminate, and the base is abruptly tapered to fairly long-attenuate, usually very briefly connate. The flowers are found in heads, usually 8-80 in decompound, lax to somewhat congested, corymbose or occasionally elongate-paniculate inflorescences 3-22 cm long and 2-26 cm wide. The lower peduncles are hispid to somewhat shaggy villous, glandular or eglandular, and the upper and ultimate peduncles are villous to hispidulous, conspicuously glandular with coarse, usually dark purple, short-stalked glands. The ultimate peduncles are usually 0-17 mm long. The receptacle is narrowly conical, with a false involucre consisting of 10-35(-40) receptacular bracts 4-8 mm long, one associated with each floret. The peripheral bracts are distinct or often irregularly connate up to ca. 2 mm, usually purplish, hispid to appressed grayish silky, often glandular toward the base. The florets number 10-35(-40) per head, with white corollas 2.5-3.5 mm long, apparently eglandular, glabrous to conspicuously pilose on the tube. The pappus consists of usually 13-19 ovate to oblong or lanceolate, very short-fimbriate scales 1-2.5 mm long. The fruit is an achene, 2.5-5 mm long, moderately to copiously hispid or strigose, often strongly curved. It is found in scrub-shrub wetlands and bogs between 1100-1550 meters.