The tree is native to the Western Ghats range in Karnataka and Kerala states of southern India; and historically to Sri Lanka, where it is either extremely rare or possibly extinct.^[1][2] It is an IUCN Red List Critically endangered species.^[1]

It is part of the South Western Ghats montane rain forests ecoregion flora.

Vatica chinensis is a tropical evergreen tree, growing to 25 metres (82 ft) in height.^[3] Its trunk bole is buttressed, pale green smooth bark. The exudation is resinous.^[4]

Leaves are simple, alternate; stipules small, fugacious; petiole 20–50 mm long, stout, glabrous; lamina 9-25 x 3–11 cm, ovate or oblong, base obtuse or broadly cuneate, apex obtusely acute, margin entire, coriaceous, glabrous; lateral nerves 10-14 pairs, parallel, prominent, intercostae scalariform, prominent.^[3]

Flowers are bisexual, white, in axillary spreading panicles; pedicels 5-ribbed; ribs alternating with sepals; calyx tube very short, adnate to the base of the ovary; lobes 5, ovoid-deltoid, acute, pubescent; petals 5, white, oblong; stamens 15 in 2 rows; filaments short, flattened at base; anthers oblong, shortly apiculate; ovary superior, covered with large shallow pits, lepidote, 3-celled, ovules 2 in each cell; style about as long as ovary, ribbed; stigmas densely papillose, obscurely 3-lobed.^[3]

Fruits are a capsule, lepidote, subglobose shortly pointed with 3 obscure, loculicidal furrows, puberulous; pericarp coriaceous; calyx persistent.^[3][5][6]