Lysimachia glutinosa is an erect or somewhat sprawling shrub that stands between 60–200 cm tall, with young stems that are viscid (sticky) and glabrous and bark that is characteristically reddish brown. The leaves are simple, alternate, well-spaced, with oblanceolate to broadly oblanceolate or elliptic blades that are 60–150 mm long and 15–45 mm wide. The blades are firm-chartaceous and sessile, featuring an acuminate apex, an attenuate base, and entire margins. The upper surfaces of the leaves are viscid when young and become glabrous over time. The flowers are sweetly fragrant, bisexual, actinomorphic (radially symmetric), and typically solitary in the leaf axils. They are 5–10-merous with stout pedicels that elongate in fruit and are viscid yet glabrous. The calyx comprises five sepals with lanceolate lobes and viscid with sessile glands. The cream-colored corolla is campanulate, with obovate lobes. The stamens are as many as and opposite the corolla lobes, with filaments connate for about half their length. The fruit is a broadly ovoid to subglobose capsule, thick, woody, and regularly dehiscent by 5–10 valves. The seeds are black, irregularly rhomboid, and angled, ranging 1–1.7 mm long, with a crustaceous seed coat. It thrives in diverse mesic forests between 1,090 – 1,220 meters.