Tree to 15 m tall but often smaller. Forming a lignotuber.Bark rough and tessellated to branches ca 2–5 cm diameter, rarely only to ca 8 cm diameter, grey-brown to reddish brown.Branchlets smooth; elongated oil or resin ducts occur in pith.Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): stem square or angled in cross-section, smooth; juvenile leaves shortly petiolate, opposite for many nodes, elliptic-lanceolate, 4.5–12 cm long, (0.9)1.5–3 cm wide, base tapering to petiole, discolorous, green, glossy above, smooth.Adult leaves alternate, petiole 0.8–2.5 cm long; blade lanceolate, rarely falcate, 8–15.2 cm long, 0.8–2.5(3) cm wide, base tapering to petiole, margin entire, apex finely drawn out to a point, discolorous, glossy or semi-glossy, green, strongly penniveined, densely to very densely reticulate, intramarginal vein parallel to and just within margin, oil glands obscure.Inflorescence terminal compound, peduncles angular, 0.4–2.5 cm long, buds 7 per umbel, on slender pedicels (0.4)1–2 cm long. Mature buds pear-shaped to obovoid, 0.8–1.5 cm long, 0.4–0.7 cm wide, smooth, scar absent (both opercula shedding together at flowering), operculum conical to rounded and apiculate or slightly beaked, stamens inflexed, anthers cuboid, versatile, dorsifixed, dehiscing by longitudinal slits (non-confluent), style long, stigma blunt with short papillae, locules 4, the placentae with ovules not arranged in distinct vertical rows. Flowers have creamy white stamens and a red centre (nectary, top of ovary and style).Fruit pedicellate (pedicels 0.4–2.2 cm long), urceolate to barrel-shaped usually with a conspicuous neck and flared thin rim but sometimes the neck short or obscure, 1.7–2.8 long, 1.2–2 cm wide, disc descending, valves 4, enclosed.Seeds brown or reddish brown, 7–13 mm long, ellipsoidal with terminal wing, surface smooth, hilum close to one edge, ventral. Cultivated seedlings (measured at ca node 10): cotyledons large reniform; stems rounded to angled in cross-section, setose for at least 14 nodes; leaves always shortly petiolate (to 0.6 cm), opposite for 14+ pairs, elliptic to oblong-lanceolate, 5.5–14.2 cm long, 1.8–4 cm wide, base rounded to tapering throughout, or sometimes weakly lobed or becoming weakly peltate from ca node 6 to 11, then reverting to rounded, green, discolorous, ± glossy, sparsely setose on both sides at lower nodes, then glabrous above setose below by node 7–10.
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