Dubautia pauciflorula is an upright (erect) or sub-scandent shrub, ranging from 0.5 to 3 meters tall, forming a diffuse, spreading crown that can reach up to 3 meters. The stems are glabrous. The leaves are opposite, narrowly oblanceolate, measuring 8-21 cm long and 1.2-3.2 cm wide. They are typically 1-nerved or occasionally faintly 7-9-nerved and completely glabrous. The margins have 5-7 pairs of small, remote teeth in the upper half. The leaf apex is attenuate-acuminate, and the base gradually attenuates, becoming dilated and briefly connate. The flower heads, usually between 50 and 500 or more, are arranged in somewhat lax, decompound, pyramidal, paniculate inflorescences ranging from 8 to 30 cm long and 6 to 30 cm wide. The lower peduncles are glabrous, while the upper ones are hirtellous and usually reddish or purplish, occasionally filiform, with ultimate peduncles typically 1-7 mm long. The receptacle is flat or nearly so, with a false involucre consisting of a single series of 2-4 peripheral, basally firmly connate, lanceolate to narrowly elliptic or oblanceolate receptacular bracts 4-5 mm long, green or tinged purple, and glabrate or glabrous. Each head contains 2-4 florets, with yellow corollas measuring 2.5-3.5 mm long and densely glandular on the central part of the tube. The pappus comprises about 24 narrowly linear, somewhat remotely ciliolate bristles 2.5-3.5 mm long. The achenes are 2-3 mm long, copiously hispidulous or strigillose. It occurs in mesic forests at 610-1,000 meters.