It is a prostrate, trailing shrub with egg-shaped, heart-shaped or round leaves, and clusters of reddish to deep maroon flowers.

[2][3][4][5] Grevillea laurifolia was first formally described in 1827 by Kurt Polycarp Joachim Sprengel in Systema Vegetabilium from an unpublished manuscript by Franz Sieber.

Subspecies caleyana is found mainly in the upper Blue Mountains between Wentworth Falls, Lithgow, Mount Werong, Wombeyan Caves and Mittagong between about 500 and 1,000 m (1,600 and 3,300 ft) above sea level.

The habitat is open sclerophyll forest under such trees as silvertop ash Eucalyptus sieberi, Sydney peppermint (E. piperita), broad-leaved peppermint (E. dives, brittle gum (E. mannifera, red stringybark (E. macrorhyncha), brown barrel (E. fastigata) and alongside shrubs such as Mirbelia platyloboides, dense phyllota (Phyllota squarrosa), mountain geebung (Persoonia chamaepitys), myrtle geebung (P. myrtilloides) and stiff-leaf wattle (Acacia obtusifolia), or in more open woodland or heath associated with Faulconbridge mallee ash (Eucalyptus burgessiana), Blue Mountains mallee ash (E. stricta), scribbly gum (E. sclerophylla), and silver banksia (Banksia marginata).

[10] Grevillea 'Poorinda Royal Mantle' is a vigorous cultivar that was bred by Victorian plantsman Leo Hodge and registered in 1978; it is thought to be a hybrid between G. laurifolia and G willisii.