Tree to 10 m tall or rarely a mallee or bushy shrub to 1 m tall. Forming a lignotuber.Bark rough to the smallest branches, tessellated, brown to yellowish brown.Branchlets lack oil glands in the pith; younger branchlets and branchlets with floral buds may be sparsely setose.Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): stems rounded in cross-section, usually setose; juvenile leaves sessile, opposite, cordate to sub-orbicular, to ca 8 cm long, 5 cm wide, grey-green, sparsely setose (slightly sandpapery) to smooth. Crown of juvenile leaves, opposite, sessile or very shortly petiolate (petioles to only 0.1 cm long); blade cordate to almost lanceolate, 3–7(10) cm long, 1.5–4.5 cm wide, base amplexicaul, margin entire, apex pointed or rounded and apiculate, concolorous, dull, light green to grey-green or blue-green, side-veins at a wide angle to the midrib (penniveined), reticulation very dense, intramarginal vein present, oil glands apparently absent.Inflorescence terminal compound, peduncles rounded or angled, 0.4–1.5(3) cm long, buds 3(?7) per umbel, pedicels 0.2–1.2 cm long. Mature buds globular, 1–1.2 cm long, 0.9–1 cm wide, sparsely and shortly setose to smooth, scar absent (both opercula shed together at flowering), operculum rounded, stamens inflexed, all fertile, anthers versatile, dorsifixed, oblong, dehiscing by longitudinal slits, style long and straight, stigma blunt with a fringe of papillae, locules (3)4, vertical ovule rows indistinct on the placentae. Flower colour unknown.Fruit pedicellate (pedicels 0.3–1.4 cm long), truncate-globose, lacking a neck but may be slightly narrowed at the top, 2.1–3.1 cm long, 2–3.1 cm wide, surface smooth, disc descending vertically, valves (3)4, enclosed.Seeds brown, 9–16 mm long, ellipsoidal with terminal wing, hilum ventral. Cultivated seedlings (measured at ca node 10): cotyledons large, reniform; stems rounded in cross-section, usually setose with bristle-glands, rarely glabrous by node10; leaves sessile or with petioles to 0.1 cm, opposite throughout, ovate or cordate, 1.5–6.5 cm long, 0.7–3.4 cm wide, base of leaves rounded but becoming amplexicaul up the stem, apex pointed, scarcely discolorous, dull, green, sparsely setose or glabrous by node 10.
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