The leaves have the 5 distinctive longitudinal veins (nerves) typical of plants in the family Melastomataceae.

Melastoma septemnervium are erect shrubs or small trees up to 5 m tall.

[2] Leaves are elliptical with short stiff hairs or scales on the upper surface and finer dense hairs on the lower surface but with a mixture of scales on the nerves.

[2] Melastoma septemnervium grows in light forests, clearings, and grass lands, or on rocky slopes, but prefers mesic to wet areas and bog margin habitats in Hawaii.

[2][3] Hawaiian populations of M. septemnervium were historically assigned to Melastoma malabathricum non L. but later were identified as M. candidum D. Don by Wagner et al. 1999 due to a number of consistently different traits, including a higher chromosome number (2n = 56 versus Melastoma malabathricum 2n = 24).