Its leaves are lance-shaped to elliptic, the flowers creamy-green, unpleasantly perfumed and tube-shaped, and the fruit a spherical drupe.

Cryptocarya grandis is a tree that typically grows to a height of up to 35 m (115 ft), its stems sometimes buttressed and its twigs glabrous.

The flowers are arranged in panicles longer than the leaves and are unpleasantly perfumed, the perianth 0.9–1.6 mm (0.035–0.063 in) long and 1.2–1.6 mm (0.047–0.063 in) wide and hairy near the tip.

[2][3] Cryptocarya grandis was first formally described in 1989 by Bernard Hyland in Australian Systematic Botany from specimens collected by Bruce Gray in 1980.

[4] Cinnamon laurel grows in rainforest at altitudes from sea level to 1,000 m (3,300 ft) from near the Iron Range to Eungella in north Queensland.