It is a shrub or small tree with oblong to elliptic leaves, racemes of white or pink flowers and blue, oval to spherical fruit.

The leaves are more or less glabrous, often turn red before falling, have regular teeth along the edges, small domatia and a prominent network of veins on both surfaces.

[2][3][4][5][6][7] Elaeocarpus reticulatus was first formally described in 1809 by James Edward Smith in Abraham Rees's The Cyclopaedia from specimens collected near Port Jackson by John White.

[10] Blueberry ash often grows in tall eucalypt forest, in or near rainforest, often in moist gullies, but also found on stony ridges.

In New South Wales it is found from sea level to the ranges and in Victoria to the east of Wilsons Promontory where it is often locally common.