It is a shrub or small tree with regularly toothed, lance-shaped to egg-shaped leaves, racemes of white flowers and black, oval fruit.

The trunk is straight with relatively smooth dark grey or brown outer bark with some fissures and wrinkles.

Flowering occurs in November and December and the fruit is an oval, maroon drupe turning blackish and 6–8 mm (0.24–0.31 in) long when mature.

[2][3][4][5][6] Elaeocarpus holopetalus was first formally described in 1861 by Ferdinand von Mueller in Fragmenta Phytographiae Australiae.

[7][8] Black olive berry grows in and near the edges of cooler rainforest at altitudes up to 1,500 m (4,900 ft) from near Dorrigo, Ebor and Chaelundi National Park in northern New South Wales to East Gippsland in north-eastern Victoria.