It is a tree with lance-shaped leaves, creamy green, perfumed flowers, and elliptic or pear-shaped black to bluish-black drupes.

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

[3][2] Cryptocarya saccharata was first formally described in 1989 by Bernard Hyland in Australian Systematic Botany from specimens collected in 1976.

[5] This species of Cryptocarya grows in rainforest, at altitudes between 650 and 1,150 m (2,130 and 3,770 ft), often in soils derived from granite, from the Windsor Tableland to near Townsville in north-east Queensland.

[3][2] This species of Cryptocarya is listed as "of least concern" under the Queensland Government Nature Conservation Act 1992.