It is a tree with elliptic to egg-shaped leaves, pale brown and creamy-green flowers, and spherical black drupes.

Cryptocarya hypospodia is a tree that typically grows to a height of up to 30 m (98 ft), its stems usually buttressed and soft hairs on its twigs.

The flowers are arranged in panicles longer than the leaves and are pale brown, creamy-green, and pleasantly perfumed.

[2][3][4] Cryptocarya hypospodia was first formally described in 1866 by Ferdinand von Mueller in his Fragmenta Phytographiae Australiae from specimens collected near Rockingham Bay.

[2][3][4] The fruit of C. hypospodia is eaten by cassowaries and fruit-eating birds, and is food for larval stages of butterflies.