Head and pronotum usually greenish with gold or coppery reflections, or sometimes red; elytra straw-coloured to yellow. The ventral side of the abdomen is largely testaceous (translucent light-brown) in males but entirely metallic in females. Similar in appearance to C. subnotata, which belongs in a different species-group and has the abdomen testaceous ventrally in both sexes, and a less rounded body shape in profile, with straighter-sided elytra often bearing a brown mark in their posterior half.

A summer-emerging species that is sometimes very abundant in the blossoms of summer-flowering Mallee Eucalypts, particularly Narrow-leaf Mallee Eucalyptus leptophylla. The predominantly yellowish colouration pattern is typical of a number of summer-emerging Buprestid species that are adapted to feeding in Eucalypt flowers, including the superficially similar C. subnotata which often occurs with it.