Cinnamomum camphora is an evergreen shrub or small arbor plant of Lauraceae, and its bark is light brown. Annual branches are slender, smooth, with longitudinal stripes, green, brown when dry, or sparsely or densely yellow-white pubescent, with dense bud scales at the base, annual branches are thick and hairless, and the cortex is irregularly longitudinally split. Fruit ovoid, red at maturity.

It grows in sparse forests in hills and mountains. Like acidic soil, resistant to pruning.