Tree to 12 m tall. Forming a lignotuber.Bark rough over part or most of trunk, thin, red-brown to orange to greyish, flaky-tessellated, becoming smooth above, powdery, white to cream to whitish grey.Branchlets smooth; long oil ducts sometimes present in the pith.Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): stems rounded in cross-section, sparsely setose to scabrid in the lower part becoming smooth after ca 7 nodes; juvenile leaves shortly petiolate, opposite, lanceolate, 6–12 cm long, 1.2–1.8(2.5) cm wide, base tapering, apex pointed, green, discolorous, lower leaves to ca node 5 scabrid with bristle-glands on underside only, upper leaves glabrous; lower leaves also have white, simple, microscopic hairs on underside. Adult leaves opposite, sub-opposite or alternate, petioles slender 1–2.5 cm long; blade lanceolate or falcate, 7.5–18 cm long, 0.7–1.7(2.2) cm wide, base tapering to petiole, margin entire, apex pointed, discolorous, dull, light green to grey-green, smooth, side-veins at greater than 45° to midrib (penniveined), reticulation dense to very dense, intramarginal vein present but very close to margin and more clearly visible from underside of leaf, oil glands scattered, small and ± island.Inflorescence terminal compound, peduncles slender and slightly angular, 0.2–1.6 cm long, buds 7 per umbel, pedicels 0.1–1.1 cm long. Mature buds obovoid or pyriform, ca 0.5 cm long, ca 0.4 cm wide, smooth and shiny, scar absent (both opercula shed together at flowering), operculum shallowly rounded and apiculate or not so, stamens inflexed, all fertile, anthers oblong, dorsifixed, versatile, dehiscing by longitudinal slits, style as long, straight, stigma blunt and with a fringe of short papillae, locules 3 or 4, the placentae each with ca 5 vertical ovule rows or the rows indistinct. Flowers not seen.Fruit pedicellate (pedicels 0.1–1.1 cm long), urceolate with a short neck that is slightly flared at the rim, 1–1.5 cm long, (0.7)0.8–1 cm wide, smooth, disc descending vertically, valves 3 or 4, enclosed.Seeds brown, 6–9 mm long, ellipsoidal with terminal wing, hilum ventral. Cultivated seedlings (measured at ca node 10): cotyledons large, reniform; stems rounded in cross-section, densely setose below ca node 9–12, above this sparsely setose to ca node 18 or becoming glabrous; leaves always petiolate, narrowly elliptic-lanceolate to linear, 4.7–10.5 cm long, 0.8–1.8 cm wide, base rounded or tapering, some leaves with peltate bases at nodes 7–12, dull, green, discolorous, upper surface glabrous after node 7–8, underside remaining sparsely setose especially on main veins. Microscopic white simple hairs are present on the underside of the upper seedling leaves, sometimes not well developed and more resembling papillae.
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