Tree or mallee to 6 m tall. Forming a lignotuber.Bark thick, rough throughout, tessellated and fissured, light grey-brown to red-brown.Branchlets lack oil glands in the pith; setose at least when young; often glaucous.Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): stems rounded in cross-section, setose, ?glaucous; juvenile leaves opposite and sessile, cordate to oblong to lanceolate, 4–13 cm long, 1.5–5 cm wide, stem-clasping, green, scabrid. Crown of juvenile leaves, opposite, sessile; blade cordate to ovate to lanceolate, 4–12 cm long, 1.7–5 cm wide, base amplexicaul, margin entire, apex pointed or rounded and apiculate, concolorous, dull, yellow-green to light green to grey-green, smooth or slightly scabrid with the remains of short bristle-glands, side-veins at a wide angle to the midrib, reticulation very dense, intramarginal vein present, oil glands scattered island or apparently absent.Inflorescence terminal compound but sometimes leafy and some umbels may appear axillary, peduncles rounded or angled, (0.5)1–3.2 cm long, buds 3 or 7 per umbel, conspicuously pedicellate (pedicels 0.7–2 cm long). Mature buds pyriform, 1.5–2.6 cm long, 0.8–1 cm wide, sometimes appearing whitish on the surface (?glaucous), very conspicuously setose with short to long bristle-glands, scar absent (both opercula shed together at flowering), operculum prominently beaked, stamens inflexed, all fertile, anthers versatile, dorsifixed, oblong, dehiscing by longitudinal slits, style long and straight, stigma blunt with a fringe of short papillae, locules (3)4, with 5, 6 or 7 vertical ovule rows on the placentae, or the rows indistinct. Flowers white.Fruit pedicellate (pedicels 0.3–1.4 cm long), urceolate to barrel-shaped, with an obvious neck but the neck not flared outwards, 2.3–3.8 cm long, (2)2.5–3.3 cm wide, thick-walled, surface rough or smooth, disc descending vertically, valves (3)4, enclosed.Seeds brown, 8–13 mm long, ellipsoidal with terminal wing, hilum ventral. Cultivated seedlings (measured at ca node 10): cotyledons large, reniform; stems rounded in cross-section, setose with bristle-glands; leaves sessile, opposite throughout, ovate becoming cordate, 4.2–9.5 cm long, 2–4 cm wide, base rounded to ca node 8 then amplexicaul, apex pointed, dull, green, slightly discolorous, leathery, conspicuously setose for many pairs or sometimes sparsely setose until ca node 8 then ± glabrous. Note that bristle-glands may have a few short simple hairs on them or be unadorned.
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