Nertera granadensis is a glabrous perennial herb with prostrate stems that root at the nodes. It typically measures 30–40 cm long and features numerous lateral branches. The leaves are simple and opposite, with suborbicular blades, broadly ovate to broadly elliptic, or elliptic, ranging from 3–18 mm long and 1.5–12 mm wide. The apex is rounded to acute and usually cuspidate, with some leaves occasionally emarginate. The base tapers abruptly to a broad to narrowly cuneate base. The surfaces are glabrous and thinly fleshy, with entire margins. Petioles are flattened and 2–6 mm long. Stipules measure 1.1–1.7 mm long, connate for ⅓–3/4 of their length, with the distinct portion being deltate–ovate to deltate, sometimes 2-lobed. Stipules usually bear mucilage-producing colleters on the inner surface that protect the growing shoot tip. The flowers are solitary, axillary, terminal, insect-pollinated, and bisexual (perfect), often heterostylous. The calyx is minute, persistent, truncate, or (in Hawai’i) with 4-5 teeth that are unequal, deltate, and about 0.3–0.7 mm long with open aestivation. The corolla is funnelform, 2–2.6 mm long, and 4-5-lobed, with lobes that are 1.1–1.8(–2.3) mm long. A nectary disk is usually present. Stamens alternate with the corolla lobes and are inserted at the base of the corolla tube, with filaments that are long exserted and anthers that are pendulous, dithecal, and open by longitudinal slits. The ovary is inferior, occasionally partly so, or rarely superior, with two cells and basal placentation. There is one anatropous ovule per cell, and the styles are filiform and 2-lobed, with lobes that are exserted and pubescent in the upper half. Stigmas are lobed or capitate, dry, or occasionally wet. The fruit is drupaceous, rarely dry, orangish red to orange, and obovoid, measuring 5–7 mm long with two plano-convex 1-seeded pyrenes that are 1.5–4 mm long. Seeds are dark brown, glossy, slightly smaller than the pyrene, and have well-developed oily endosperm, although endosperm is occasionally scanty or absent. It forms mats in wet soil or moss mats and is sometimes epiphytic on logs. It is usually found in wet forests and bogs between 490-2070 meters.