Tree to 25 m tall. Forming a lignotuber.Bark rough over trunk and branches to ca 2 cm diameter, coarsely tessellated, grey to dark brown.Branchlets smooth (glabrous); elongated oil bodies sometimes present in the pith.Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): stems rounded in cross-section, smooth (glabrous); juvenile leaves always shortly petiolate, opposite or becoming sub-opposite to alternate, linear-elliptic to narrowly lanceolate, 4.2–9.5 cm long, 0.7–2 cm wide, base tapering to petiole, apex pointed, green, discolorous, glabrous.Adult leaves alternate, petioles 0.9–2.6 cm long; blade lanceolate, 7–17 cm long, 0.8–3(3.5) cm wide, base tapering to petiole, margin entire, apex finely pointed, strongly discolorous, usually glossy, dark green above, paler below, smooth, side-veins greater than 45° to midrib, reticulation dense to very dense, intramarginal vein present but very close to margin and more easily seen from underside, oil glands obscure or sparse, island.Inflorescence terminal compound, peduncles slender 0.2–2 cm long, buds 7 per umbel, pedicels 0.3–1.9 cm long. Mature buds obovoid to ovoid, 0.8–1.2 cm long, 0.4–0.6 cm wide, smooth, scar absent (both opercula shed together at flowering), operculum shallowly rounded to conical or occasionally beaked, stamens inflexed, all fertile, anthers oblong, dorsifixed, versatile, dehiscing by longitudinal slits, style long and straight, stigma blunt, locules 4 or 5, the ovules not arranged in clear rows on the placentae. Flowers creamy white.Fruit pedicellate (pedicels 0.2–1.7 cm long), urceolate to ± barrel-shaped, usually with a conspicuous neck and thickened rim, occasionally lacking the neck and simply tapering to the rim, (1.5)1.7–3.1 cm long, (1.2)1.4–2.2 cm wide, longer than wide, ± smooth, disc descending vertically, valves 4 or 5, enclosed.Seeds brown, (7)9–15(17) mm long, ellipsoidal with terminal wing, hilum ventral.Cultivated seedlings (measured at ca node 10): cotyledons reniform; stems rounded in cross-section, setose with short bristle-glands for lower 2 to 5 internodes, then glabrous; leaves shortly petiolate, opposite, linear-oblong to narrowly lanceolate, 8–12.5 cm long, 0.9–1.8 cm wide, base tapering to petiole, upper surface glabrous, dull, dark green, becoming glossy by node 10–11, sparsely setose only on paler lower surface of lowest leaves, soon becoming glabrous.
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