Hibiscus waimeae subsp. waimeae is a gray-barked tree that reaches 6–10 meters, with branches, petioles, and pedicels densely covered in stellate pubescence. The leaves are simple and alternate, with orbicular to broadly ovate-elliptic blades measuring 5–25 cm in length and 3–18 cm in width. The apex ranges from obtuse to acute, and the base from obtuse to truncate. The lower surfaces are grayish and velvety tomentose, while the upper surfaces are less densely pubescent or become glabrous, with margins that are inconspicuous to moderately crenate or crenate-serrate. Petioles are usually less than half the length of the blades. The flowers are strongly fragrant, solitary, and located near the ends of branches, with pedicels 2–3 cm long. The calyx is tubular, 2–4.5 cm long, composed of connate sepals with five lobes often accrescent in fruit. The corolla, flaring and adnate basally to the staminal column, opens white in the morning and fades to pinkish in the afternoon, measuring 3–13 cm long. The staminal column is exserted, reddish to crimson at the top, and up to 15 cm long. The fruit is a loculicidally-dehiscent, cartilaginous capsule, obovoid and apiculate, measuring 1.8–2.5 cm long; glabrous; exocarp and endocarp sometimes separating at maturity. The seeds are angular–reniform, ca. 4-5 mm long, brownish tomentose, with or without endosperm. It occurs in diverse mesic forests ranging from 250 – 1200 meters in elevation.