It is a hairy shrub with narrowly elliptic to lance-shaped or egg-shaped leaves and white to cream-coloured or yellowish, tube-shaped flowers arranged singly or in groups of up to 5 in leaf axils, near the ends of branches.

Cryptandra triplex is a shrub that typically grows to a height of up to 1.2 m (3 ft 11 in), its young stems, leaves and flowers densely covered with greyish, star-shaped hairs.

The flowers are borne singly or in groups of up to 5 in leaf axils near the ends of branches with egg-shaped bracts 0.6–1 mm (0.024–0.039 in) long at the base.

[2] Cryptandra triplex was first formally described in 2006 by Jürgen Kellermann in the journal Austrobaileya from an unpublished description by Kevin Thiele of specimens collected by Lyndley Craven near east Jabiru in 1981.

[2] This cryptandra grows in shrubland and woodland on sandstone plateaux and rock outcrops, and is only known from Nitmiluk and Kakadu National Parks.