Cyrtandra filipes is a shrub approximately 1 meter tall, with stems that are few-branched, rounded to angular, and covered with pubescent multicellular hairs or are nearly hairless (glabrate). It has simple leaves arranged in whorls of 3–4 per node, or occasionally opposite, often clustered at the stem’s upper 3–7 nodes. The leaves at each node are unequal but symmetrical, ranging from oblanceolate to elliptic, 10–21 cm long and 2.5–6 cm wide, with an acuminate or rarely obtuse apex and a cuneate to attenuate base. The surfaces of the leaves are very sparsely strigose or nearly hairless, with the blades being thin and flaccid. It produces solitary flowers or occasionally in pairs within cymes, emerging from the leaf axils. The flowers are moderately to densely puberulent or occasionally nearly hairless, with peduncles and slender pedicels. The calyx is zygomorphic (bilaterally symmetric) and fusiform in the bud, becoming pale green and thin during anthesis. The corolla is usually bilabiate and white, with a subcylindrical tube curved near the middle. It has five stamens, with two upper fertile stamens and the rest being staminodial. The ovary is superior, glabrous, oblong-ovoid, with parietal placentation. The fruit is a fleshy or firm, narrowly ellipsoid, white berry, often tipped by the persistent stylar beak, containing numerous ellipsoid, minute seeds with a reticulate surface, usually 0.3-0.4 mm long. It is typically found in wet gulches and along streams in mesic valleys around 220 meters.