Pritchardia martii is a small palm ranging from 3 to 16 meters tall. The trunk is covered in bark that supports a crown typically containing 20 to 35 ascending, spreading, and sometimes drooping leaves. These leaves are simple and arranged spirally with a petiolate attachment and absent stipules. The lower surfaces of the leaves are silvery gray and exhibit an appressed yellowish or slightly yellowish-brown lepidote appearance when dry. The veins run parallel. The inflorescences are equal to or longer than the petioles, consisting of 1–3 panicles per peduncle, each about 20 cm long. These panicles are loosely branched, more densely in the lower part and simpler above. The rachillae range from sparsely to densely villous before exposure and may retain these characteristics in fruit, displaying colors from rusty to tan or silvery. The flowers are sessile and bisexual (perfect), with a cupular calyx that is shallowly 3-lobed and prominently nerved or smooth when dry. The corolla has three petals that are adnate to the staminal filament tube at the base up to the height of the calyx, with distinct lobes that are valvate in bud. There are six stamens with filaments that are flattened and thickish, connate at the base into a tube that equals or exceeds the calyx, surrounding the carpels, then distinct and abruptly subulate at the top. The anthers are dorsifixed and bifid at the base, longitudinally and laterally dehiscent. The fruits are ellipsoid, narrowing toward both ends but especially pointed above, measuring approximately 4–5 cm in length and 2.8–3.9 (up to 4.5) cm in width. The seeds are shiny and distinct from the endocarp except at the hilum, with a homogeneous endosperm except for a shallow invagination of the seed coat below the raphe, and the embryo is situated laterally near the base opposite the raphe. It is found in wet forests on slopes, ridges, precipices, cliffs, and sometimes in mesic valleys between 360-610 meters.