Tree to 15 m tall, sometimes taller to 25 m. Forming a lignotuber.Bark rough on part or all of trunk, box-type or sometimes tessellated, grey or blackish, large branches and sometimes upper trunk smooth-barked, white to grey.Branchlets lack oil glands in the pith; non-glaucous. Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): stems usually square in cross-section; juvenile leaves always petiolate, opposite for a few pairs then alternate, linear-lanceolate, 6–13 cm long, 0.7–1.1 cm wide, base tapering to petiole, dull, blue-green to blue-grey or ?slightly glaucous.Adult leaves alternate, petiole 0.4–1(1.5) cm long; blade narrowly lanceolate, 7–14(17) cm long, 0.6–1.2(1.5) cm wide, base tapering to petiole, concolorous, dull to slightly glossy, green, side-veins acute or at an angle greater than 45° to midrib, densely reticulate, intramarginal vein parallel to and just within margin, oil glands intersectional.Inflorescence mostly terminal compound, sometimes axillary panicles, peduncles 0.2–0.5(0.8) cm long, 7 buds per umbel, rarely 3, pedicels 0.1–0.3 cm long. Mature buds obovoid, 0.2–0.3 cm long, 0.1–0.2 cm wide, scar present (outer operculum lost early), operculum usually rounded, stamens irregularly flexed, anthers adnate, globular, dehiscing by lateral pores, style short, stigma blunt, locules 3 or 4, the placentae each with 4 vertical ovule rows. Flowers white.Fruit on pedicels 0.1–0.3 cm long, cup-shaped, 0.2–0.3 cm long, 0.2–0.3 cm wide, thin-walled, disc descending, valves 3 or 4, enclosed or near the rim.Seeds dark brown, 0.8–1.2 mm long, ovoid to flattened-ovoid, dorsal surface shallowly reticulate, hilum ventral. Cultivated seedlings (measured at ca node 10): cotyledons small, reniform; stems square in cross-section, sometimes slightly warty; leaves always petiolate, opposite for 5 to 7 nodes then alternate, linear to narrowly lanceolate, 10–15.5 cm long, 0.5–1.1 cm wide, dull, green to grey-green, discolorous.
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