Melicope nealae is a sprawling shrub with stems up to a few meters long. New growth is densely tomentose, with branches becoming glabrate with age. Leaves are simple and opposite, with elliptic to obovate blades measuring 3–18 cm long and 1.3–9 cm wide. The apex is rounded and usually emarginate, and the base is cuneate. Upper leaf surfaces are glabrous, while lower surfaces are moderately pilose; blades are coriaceous with entire margins. Primary lateral veins number 12–20 pairs, spreading and connected by an arched vein 2–6 mm from the margin; venation is pinnate, with higher-order veins forming a reticulate pattern. Petioles are 10–30 mm long, and stipules are absent. Flowers occur 1–5 per minutely puberulent axillary cyme, with peduncles 1–5 mm long and pedicels 3–4 mm long. There are 8 stamens. The ovary is superior, 4-celled and 4-lobed, with carpels connate and only slightly distinct at the apex to almost entirely distinct; ovules are 2 per cell, hemitropous, with 1 ascending; the single style terminates in 4 short stigmatic branches. Fruits are green capsules 20–25 mm wide, with carpels connate for about half their length; individual carpels are 10–12 mm long, with a minutely puberulent exocarp and glabrous endocarp, dehiscing along the upper suture. Seeds are 2 per carpel, about 4 mm long when immature, glossy black when ripe, crustaceous, ovoid, sometimes angled from compression, with a straight embryo in fleshy endosperm, short radicle, compressed ovate cotyledons, and a brown, warty putamen. It occurs in mesic forests at approximately 1,067 meters.