Tree 12 m tall. Forming a lignotuber.Bark rough, persistent, tessellated and grey for basal 0.2–1 m of trunk only, then smooth, white to coppery or pale pinkish grey, sometimes powdery. Small trees may be completely smooth-barked.Branchlets have elongated oil glands or ducts in the pith; younger branchlets setose to scabrid with bristle-glands that bear short simple hairs. Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): stems rounded in cross-section, setose with bristle-glands bearing simple hairs; leaves opposite to sub-opposite or alternate, shortly petiolate (petioles 0.3–1 cm), ovate to elliptical, 5–13.5 cm long, 2.5–5.3 cm wide, base usually rounded but sometimes lobed, margin usually entire, apex rounded or pointed, green to grey-green, setose.Crown a mixture of petiolate, dull, green to grey-green, setose, ovate to elliptical to broadly lanceolate juvenile and intermediate leaves, and sometimes also glabrous, green, dull or glossy, linear-lanceolate to lanceolate true adult leaves. The following description applies to all crown leaves: opposite, sub-opposite or sometimes alternate, shortly petiolate, petioles 0.3–1.6 cm long; blade (4)5–13(16) cm long, (0.4)0.7–4.6 cm wide, ± undulate or flat, base slightly lobed or rounded or tapering, margin usually entire, apex pointed or rounded, concolorous, side-veins at greater than 45° to midrib, reticulation dense to very dense, intramarginal vein present, oil glands obscure or minute, island.Inflorescence axillary compound and condensed, the rhachis consisting of a basal internode ca 0.1–0.4 cm long bearing peduncles of variable length 0.1–0.7 cm long, buds (?3)7 per umbel, pedicels 0.2–1.1 cm long. Mature buds pyriform, 0.5–0.7 cm long, 0.4–0.5 cm wide, smooth, scar present (outer operculum shed early), operculum shallowly rounded, stamens inflexed, all fertile, anthers oblong, dorsifixed, versatile, dehiscing by longitudinal slits, style long and straight, stigma blunt, locules 3 or 4, the ovules arranged in 3 or 4 ± regular vertical rows on the placentae; flowers creamy white.Fruit pedicellate (pedicels 0.4–1 cm long), cupular to barrel-shape, 0.5–1 cm long, 0.5–0.8 cm wide, thin-walled, disc descending vertically, valves 3 or 4, enclosed.Seeds not seen (other ghost gum species have brown, saucer-shaped seed, smooth on both sides with hilum ventral). Cultivated seedlings (measured at ca node 10): cotyledons large, ± orbicular; not grown beyond this stage.
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