It is a shrub or small tree with elliptic or egg-shaped to lance-shaped leaves and male and female flowers on separate plants.

Flowering occurs from May to November, and the fruit is a spherical drupe in tight clusters that turns yellow or orange, about 3.5 mm (0.14 in) in diameter.

[2][3][4][5] Hedycarya angustifolia was first formally described in 1838 by Allan Cunningham in the Annals of Natural History from specimens collected "in ravines in the Blue Mountains" in 1834 by his brother Richard.

[8] Native mulberry grows in and near the margins of rainforest, often in moist mountain gullies, and is widespread from south-east Queensland, through eastern New South Wales and eastern and southern Victoria to King Island in Tasmania.

[2][3][4][5] Hedycarya angustifolia is listed as "rare", under the Tasmanian Government Threatened Species Protection Act 1995.