Tree or mallee to 10 m tall. Forming a lignotuber. Bark rough, dark grey, fairly firm and scaly or flaky to fibrous for about half of to all of trunk and large limbs to ca 15 cm diameter, becoming slightly tessellated on older trees, smooth above, dull pinkish grey to whitish. Branchlets with small oil glands in the pith. Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): stems rounded in cross-section, slightly glaucous; juvenile leaves always petiolate, opposite at lowest nodes but soon alternate, ovate to elliptic to lanceolate, 2–9 cm long, 0.8–2.5 cm wide, bluish to glaucous, becoming glossy, green as a sapling. Adult leaves alternate, petioles 0.8–1.7 cm long; blade linear to narrowly lanceolate or falcate, 6–11 cm long, 0.6–1.2 cm wide, base tapering to petiole, margin entire, apex pointed, concolorous, glossy, green, side-veins at an acute or wider angle to midrib, reticulation moderate to dense, intramarginal vein close to margin, oil glands mostly intersectional. Inflorescence axillary unbranched, peduncles 0.5–1.5 cm long, buds 9 to 15 per umbel, pedicellate, pedicels 0.2–0.5 cm long. Mature buds ovoid with operculum equal to or narrower than hypanthium at the join (0.5–0.7 cm long, 0.25–0.35 cm wide), scar present, operculum bluntly to acutely conical (0.15–0.3 cm long), stamens inflexed, anthers oblong, versatile, dorsifixed, dehiscing by longitudinal slits, style stout, long and straight, stigma blunt to slightly rounded, locules 3(4), the placentae each with 4 vertical rows of ovules. Flowers white. Fruit pedicellate (pedicels 0.2–0.5 cm long), shortly barrel-shaped to obconical tending to truncate-globose, 0.4–0.5 cm long, 0.4–0.6 cm wide, disc descending vertically, valves 3(4), near rim level. Seeds mid-brown, 0.8–1.5 mm long, flattened ovoid, dorsal surface shallowly and clearly reticulate, hilum ventral. Cultivated seedlings (measured at ca node 10): cotyledons reniform; stems rounded in cross-section; leaves always petiolate, opposite for 3 to 8 nodes then alternate, ovate to lanceolate, 4.5–10 cm long, 1.3–3.5 cm wide, dull, concolorous, green.
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