Clermontia kakeana grows as shrubs or trees ranging from 1 to 6 meters in height, predominately found in montane rain forests. It exhibits a terrestrial or epiphytic growth form, with light gray or light brown stems, glabrous or rarely pubescent, and characterized by numerous helically arranged leaf scars near the apex. The leaves are simple and alternate, with elliptic, oblanceolate, or broadly oblanceolate blades measuring 12–26 cm in length and 3.5–9.8 cm in width, featuring a green upper surface and a pale green lower surface. The inflorescences are typically 2 to 7-flowered, displaying a bilabiate perianth that is pale green, greenish-white, white, or cream, and occasionally rose externally. These flowers are bisexual, epigynous, zygomorphic (bilaterally symmetric), resupinate, and protandrous, with a hypanthium of 0.8–1.4 cm in length and diameter. The calyx is synsepalous with firm, green lobes that mimic the corolla in shape and color. The stamens are syngenesious, with dark purple or rarely white anthers, and the ovary is inferior, consisting of two carpels and two locules. The fruit is an orange berry, either subglobose or oblong, with a thick, leathery pericarp and numerous tiny, dark brown or black seeds with a straight, short to spatulate dicotyledonous embryo embedded in oily endosperm. It is found at elevations ranging from 245-1270 meters, particularly in the Wai’anae and Ko’olau Mountains of O’ahu and Moloka’i, West Maui, and windward East Maui.