Devilwood is an evergreen shrub or tree to 30 feet tall. The bark is gray, thin, and scally. Dropped scales expose the reddish inner bark. Its preferred habitat is common dry places, stable dunes, live-oak, maritime woods and pinelands.

The leaves are opposite on the stems. Leaf margins are entire (no teeth and no lobes) and rolled inward; smooth beneath. The leaf tip is acute to rounded, and usually about twice as long as wide. The base is wedge-shaped.

The flowers are small, greenish to light cream, individually inconspicuous, in short axullary clusters. The immature clusters are evident late in the growing season and during the winter.

Fruit is a dark purple ovoid to ellipsoid drupe.