Tree to 12 m tall. Forming a lignotuber.Bark rough over trunk and branches to ca 3 cm diameter, hard, thick, corky and tessellated, outer bark greyish with yellow to pinkish brown underbark visible.Branchlets smooth (glabrous); long oil bodies sometimes visible in the pith.Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): stems rounded in cross-section, smooth or slightly scabrid only on the lowest part; juvenile leaves always shortly petiolate (occasional leaf sessile), opposite for many nodes or becoming sub-opposite, linear-elliptic to narrowly lanceolate, 4.8–10 cm long, 0.7–2 cm wide, base tapering to petiole, apex pointed, green, discolorous, glabrous.Adult leaves alternate, petioles 0.8–2.2 cm long; blade lanceolate to falcate, 9–20 cm long, 1–2.5 cm wide, base tapering to petiole, margin entire, apex finely pointed, strongly discolorous, glossy and dark green above, paler below, smooth, side-veins at greater than 45° to midrib, reticulation dense to very dense, intramarginal vein present but very close to margin (more easily seen from underside when dry), oil glands obscure or sparse, island.Inflorescence terminal compound, peduncles slender 0.6–1.6 cm long, buds 7 per umbel, pedicels 0.3–1.1 cm long. Mature buds obovoid to ± cylindrical, 0.7–0.8 cm long, 0.4–0.5 cm wide, scar absent (both opercula shed together at flowering), operculum rounded to conical, stamens inflexed, all fertile, anthers oblong, dorsifixed, versatile, dehiscing by longitudinal slits, style long and straight, stigma blunt and shortly papillose, locules 3 or 4, the ovules not arranged in clear rows on the placentae (sometimes 5 rows ± discernable). Flowers creamy white.Fruit pedicellate (pedicels 0.2–0.9 cm long), urceolate with short neck not flared at rim, 1.4–2 cm long, 1–1.5 cm wide, longer than wide, ± smooth, disc descending vertically, valves 3 or 4, enclosed.Seeds brown, 7–11 mm long, ellipsoidal with terminal wing, hilum ventralCultivated seedlings (measured at ca node 10): cotyledons large, reniform; stems rounded in cross-section, setose with short bristle-glands for about lowest 3–7 nodes, then glabrous; leaves shortly petiolate (petioles to 0.7 cm), opposite for at least 16 nodes, linear-lanceolate, 5–11 cm long, 1–2.5 cm wide, base tapering to petiole, light to mid green, discolorous, setose on lower leaves, becoming free of setae by ca node 3–8, upper surface slightly glossy by node 9.
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