Mallee to 5 m tall. Forming a lignotuber.Bark partly rough with loose, papery or brittle ribbons of imperfectly shed pale grey-brown bark on at least base of or over most of trunk, smooth bark whitish to pink, pale orange or grey.Branchlets lacking oil glands in the pith. Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): stems rounded in cross-section; juvenile leaves shortly petiolate, opposite for very few nodes on coppice, soon alternate, orbicular to broadly elliptical, 2–6.5 cm long, 2–5 cm wide, base tapering, margin entire or subcrenulate, apex emarginate or rounded and apiculate, dull, slightly blue-green.Adult leaves alternate, petioles 0.4–2.2 cm long; blade lanceolate, 5.5–12.5 cm long, 1–2.5(3.2) cm wide, base tapering to petiole, margin entire or sometimes subcrenulate, apex acute, glossy, green, side-veins greater than 45° to midrib, reticulation dense to very dense, intramarginal vein remote from margin, oil glands numerous, irregular and intersectional.Inflorescence axillary unbranched, peduncles 0.3–1.2 cm long, buds ?11 to 21 per umbel, sessile or shortly pedicellate (pedicels 0–0.3 cm long). Mature buds squatly ovoid to fusiform (0.7–1.2 cm long, 0.35–0.5 cm wide), scar present (outer operculum shed early), operculum conical to beaked, stamens inflexed, anthers reniform, versatile, dorsifixed, dehiscing by longitudinal slits that remain separate, style long and straight, stigma more or less rounded, locules 3 or 4, the placentae each with 4 vertical rows of ovules. Flowers creamy white.Fruit sessile or shortly pedicellate (pedicels 0–0.2 cm long), broadly obconical to flattened-hemispherical, 0.4–0.6 cm long, 0.5–0.9 cm wide, disc more or less level, valves 3 or 4, exserted but tips fragile.Seeds dark greyish brown, 1–2 mm long, ovoid or flattened-ovoid, dorsal surface smooth, hilum ventral.Cultivated seedlings (measured at ca node 10): cotyledons Y-shaped (bisected); stems rounded in cross-section, smooth or slightly warty; leaves opposite to sub-opposite, becoming alternate variably from ca node 6 to 16, sessile (for at least 20 nodes on some) or shortly petiolate for many nodes, orbicular and often wider than long, 1.5–3 cm long, 1.5–4 cm wide, base truncate, rounded, amplexicaul or tapering, margin entire or subcrenulate, apex emarginate to rounded, grey-green to green, dull.
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