Mallee to 10 m tall. Forming a lignotuber. Bark rough over part or all of trunks, box-type to fibrous, rarely smooth throughout, grey, yellow-grey and grey-brown, smooth above, grey over green-brown. Branchlets lacking oil glands in the pith. Juvenile growth (coppice or wild seedling to 50 cm tall): stems rounded in cross-section, non-glaucous; juvenile leaves always petiolate, opposite for ca 2 nodes then alternate, deltoid to ovate or elliptical, 4.5–8.5 cm long, 2–6.5 cm wide, dull blue to bluish green (but not glaucous), becoming lanceolate, green and glossy by 1.5 m tall. Adult leaves alternate, petiole 1–2.2 cm long; blade lanceolate, often broadly so, 7–11 cm long, 1.5–4 cm wide, base tapering to petiole, margin entire, apex pointed, concolorous, glossy, green, side-veins greater than 45° to midrib, reticulation dense to very dense, intramarginal vein close to margin, oil glands obscure (?absent). Inflorescence terminal compound, peduncles 0.4–1 cm long, buds 7 per umbel, pedicels 0.2–0.5 cm long. Mature buds obovoid to pyriform, 0.4–0.6 cm long, 0.3–0.4 cm wide, scar present (outer operculum lost early), operculum rounded, stamens inflexed, outer filaments without anthers or anthers small and poorly formed (staminodes), inner stamens fertile, filaments shorter, anthers with more or less cuboid to globose, scarcely versatile, sub-dorsifixed, dehiscing by short subterminal slits or pores, style long and straight, stigma blunt to pinhead-shaped, locules 4, the placentae each with 4 vertical rows of ovules. Flowers cream. Fruit on pedicels 0.2–0.4 cm long, obconical to cupular, 0.4–0.5 cm long, 0.4–0.6 cm wide, rim thin, disc descending more or less obliquely, valves 4, enclosed. Seeds dark brown, 0.8–2 mm long, flattened-ovoid, dorsal surface shallowly reticulate, hilum ventral. Cultivated seedlings (measured at node 10): cotyledons reniform; stems more or less square in cross-section; leaves always petiolate, opposite for 4 or 5 nodes then alternate, deltoid to ovate, 4–6.5 cm long, 2.5–5.5 cm wide, dull, greyish green.
Home