It is a rainforest tree with oblong to egg-shaped leaves, the flowers creamy-green, tube-shaped and unpleasantly perfumed, and the fruit a spherical drupe with white or cream-coloured cotyledons.

Cryptocarya obovata is a tree that typically grows to a height of up to 40 m (130 ft) with a dbh of 90 cm (35 in), its stems sometimes buttressed.

[2][3][4] The flowers are creamy-green and unpleasantly perfumed, arranged in panicles shorter than the leaves.

[2][3][4] Cryptocarya obovata was first formally described in 1810 by Robert Brown in his book, Prodromus Florae Novae Hollandiae.

[7] Pepperberry grows on basaltic and fertile alluvial soils in rainforests from Wyong in New South Wales to Gympie in Queensland.