Pritchardia napaliensis is a small palm that grows 4–6 meters tall and has a slender trunk measuring 18–20 cm in diameter. The leaves are simple and spirally arranged, forming an open crown with about 20 leaves. The blades are approximately 85 cm long from the ligule to the apex, presenting green surfaces that are almost flat irrespective of plication. The lower surfaces feature pale, membranous, elliptic, fimbriate lepidia that later become almost smooth, with leaf segments becoming lax, flexible, and drooping as they age. The petioles are about 1 meter long, initially densely coated with yellowish-brown tomentum in the lower third, with the remaining portion becoming pale due to a close coating of lepidia, ultimately becoming nearly smooth. Stipules are absent. The flowers are arranged in inflorescences equal to or shorter than the petioles, with panicles shorter than the peduncular part, measuring approximately 14 cm long and glabrous throughout. A setaceous bracteole subtends each flower, and the prophyll and peduncular bracts are sparsely and inconspicuously lepidote, usually appearing almost smooth. The flowers themselves are bisexual (perfect) and sessile. The calyx is barrel-shaped, about 3 mm long, perceptibly 3-toothed, with barely visible nerves converging towards the teeth. The corolla comprises three petals, adnate basally to the staminal filament tube to about the height of the calyx, with distinct lobes that are valvate in the bud and shed as the flower opens, revealing prominently pocketed and furrowed insides and prominently nerved surfaces when dry. There are six stamens with flattened, thick filaments that are connate basally into a tube that equals or exceeds the calyx and surrounds the carpels before becoming distinct and abruptly subulate, with dorsifixed, spreading-erect to versatile anthers that are bifid at the base and emarginate at the apex. The ovary is superior with three carpels, typically only one maturing, and they are coherent only at the base. Ovules are anatropous and erect, attached at the base of the placenta. The fruit is black and obovoid, measuring 1.7 cm to 2.3 cm long and 1.4 cm to 1.8 cm in diameter. The seeds are distinct from the endocarp except at the hilum, shiny, with homogeneous endosperm except for a shallow invagination of the seed coat below the raphe (longitudinal ridge on the side of certain ovules). The embryo is lateral, near the base opposite the raphe. It is found in mesic valleys around 160 meters.