Diagnostic features. Hibbertia pallida can be distinguished from all other species in the H. aurea-H. crassifolia group by the combination of usually glabrous leaves (sometimes with scattered hooked hairs) that are 5–15 mm long × 0.5–1 mm wide, linear, acute, not prominently tuberculate and without a prominent midrib abaxially, and 6–8 floral bracts that are 2–5 mm long.

Phenology. Flowers from July to early December, with a peak in September.

Distribution & habitat. Widespread in south-west Western Australia from the Hill River south to Bridgetown and east to the vicinity of Toodyay and Northam (Fig. 2), in jarrah-marri forests, Banksia woodlands, and proteaceous heathlands, on sandy to clayey soils.

Conservation status. Widespread and common, and not considered to be at risk.

Notes. The name Hibbertia pallida is here reinstated for a common and widespread segregate of the previously broadly circumscribed H. aurea. The two species can be discriminated most readily on the basis of their leaf length (5–15 mm in H. pallida, 10–55 mm in H. aurea) and size and texture of their sepals (7–10 mm long, firm, chartaceous and glossy in H. aurea; 4.5–6.5 mm long, herbaceous, softer-textured and not glossy in H. pallida). As the name suggests, the latter also has paler flowers than the former, though this difference is subtle.

The leaves of H. pallida are not as sharply acute as those of H. aurea, and some specimens have leaf apices that approach those of some of the segregates of H. crassifolia (all of which generally have obtuse leaves, but may be bluntly pointed). A useful difference when indumentum is present is that H. aurea and H. pallida have hooked hairs on their leaves, whereas H crassifolia and its segregates have mostly non-hooked hairs (though some shorter hairs amongst the indumentum may be somewhat hooked).

Hibbertia pallida is somewhat variable. More detailed studies that combine molecular analyses and morphology may indicate that it is here too broadly circumscribed, and comprises several morphologically similar species. Some specimens have relatively short, blunt leaves that are more robust than average, with a more prominent midrib. Floral bracts vary from narrowly triangular to broadly oblong-acuminate, and in the southern part of the range this difference appears to be geographically patterned. However, it is clearly different from H. aurea, with which it has been combined hitherto, and its recognition substantially clarifies species boundaries in the group.

Typification. The type specimen of H. aurea var. brevifolia was presumably destroyed during the Second World War when the Berlin Herbarium was bombed in 1943. The protologue description ['Foliis ad ramulos confertis quam ca typi multo brevioribus (5 x 3/4–1 mm)'] is inadequate to place it; however, given its collecting locality I regard that it was very likely H. pallida, and accordingly place it into synonymy here.