Bobea timonioides is a small tree reaching up to 10 meters in height, with young branches approximately 2.5 mm in diameter towards the apex and displaying an appressed puberulent to sericeous texture. The leaves are simple and opposite, with ovate to lanceolate or elliptic blades measuring 4–10(–13) cm in length and 2–6.5 cm in width, featuring an acute to acuminate apex and an acute to obtuse or rounded base. The upper surfaces of the leaves are either glabrous or sparsely pubescent along the midrib. In contrast, the lower surfaces are sparsely appressed pubescent on the midrib and nerves, with domatia varying from plane to somewhat elevated, displaying porate to slit-like openings in the axils of secondary nerves. The leaves are chartaceous to subcoriaceous, with entire margins, and the petioles, measuring 5–25 mm in length, are pubescent. The flowers are arranged in cymes with 3–7 staminate and perfect flowers, with peduncles ranging from 12–20 mm in length and about 1 mm in width, and pistillate flowers typically solitary with peduncles up to 15 mm long. The flowers, which are insect-pollinated, can be bisexual (perfect) or functionally unisexual, displaying a 4(5)-merous structure and often being heterostylous. The calyx limb is cupular and dentate, up to 1.5 mm long with appressed pubescence externally, and the corolla, which is greenish to yellowish or sometimes white, is salverform with a tube measuring 6–11 mm in length for staminate and perfect flowers, and 5.5–10 mm in length for pistillate flowers. Staminate and perfect flowers have sessile anthers approximately 3.5 mm long, and the ovary can be inferior to very rarely superior, with the fruit being a drupaceous, purplish to black, ovoid to subglobose structure 7–10 mm in diameter and containing (2–)4–7 thick-walled, 1-seeded pyrenes, without an endosperm. It is found in dry to occasionally mesic forests at elevations ranging from 250–580 meters.