It has mottled bark, simple leaves arranged in opposite pairs, white to cream-coloured flowers and fruit studded with rough points.

Flindersia maculosa is a tree that typically grows to a height of 15 m (49 ft), developing from a tangled mass of spiny branches in the juvenile stage.

The upper surface of the leaf is shiny and dark green, the lower side dull and paler.

Flowering occurs from September to December and the fruit is a woody capsule studded with rough points and that opens into five section, releasing winged seeds about 18 mm (0.71 in) long.

[2][3] Leopardwood was first formally described in 1848 by John Lindley in Thomas Mitchell's Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia.