Cyrtandra laxiflora is a shrub growing between 1 and 5 meters tall. The stems are rounded to angular and may be pubescent with multicellular hairs or glabrate. The leaves are simple and opposite, borne on the upper 3–5 nodes. The leaves of a pair can be subequal or somewhat unequal, symmetrical or asymmetrical, and are elliptic to broadly elliptic or rarely ovate, measuring 14–39 cm long and 2.5–13 cm wide. The apex is acute to acuminate, and the base is asymmetrical and cuneate. The upper surfaces are sparsely to moderately hirtellous, while the lower surfaces are moderately to densely velvety short-pilose with rust-colored hairs, and the blades are chartaceous. The margins are irregularly denticulate to serrate. Petioles are 2.5–10 cm long, sometimes clasping the stem or perfoliate at the base. The flowers are 3–33 in branched cymes, arising along the stems and occasionally on the caudex, roots, or among the leaves, and are short-pilose throughout. Peduncles are 8–50 mm long, and pedicels are 3–16 mm long, elongating to 20–25 mm in fruit. Bracts are linear-lanceolate, distinct, or occasionally connate, 2–12 mm long. The flowers are bisexual and nearly actinomorphic (radially symmetric), with a greenish-white calyx that is 5–7(–12) mm long, cleft to ¾–7/8 its length, and has narrowly lanceolate lobes. The corolla is usually bilabiate and white, with a cylindrical tube that flares slightly at the mouth, measuring 11–17 mm long and ca. 4–5 mm in diameter medially, and is moderately to densely pilose. The upper lip has two lobes, and the lower has three lobes. Stamens are inserted halfway up the corolla tube, with two upper fertile stamens and the others staminodial. The fruit is a fleshy or firm berry, white, lanceoloid to ovoid, 1–1.5 cm long, puberulent, and often tipped by the persistent stylar beak. The seeds are numerous, ellipsoid, minute, 0.3–0.5 mm long, and the surface is reticulate. It occurs in moist, shaded gulch bottoms and on slopes in mesic valleys, often with Psidium and Aleurites, between 150 – 610 meters.