Mallee to 5 m tall. Forming a lignotuber. Bark rough on part or most of stems, fibrous to box-type, grey to grey-brown, or smooth throughout, grey to pink-grey or coppery brown, the crown sometimes ribbony. Branchlets with or without oil glands in the pith, if present restricted to the nodes. Juvenile growth (coppice or wild seedling to 50 cm tall): stems rounded to square in cross-section, smooth or slightly warty; juvenile leaves always petiolate, opposite for 3 to 6 pairs then alternate, ovate to broadly lanceolate, 4–1 long, 2.3–4.7 cm wide, base tapering to petiole, apex pointed or rounded, concolorous, lower leaves dull, blue-green, later leaves glossy, dark green. Adult leaves alternate, petiole 1–2 cm long; blade lanceolate, 7–14 cm long, 1.2–3 cm wide, base tapering to petiole, concolorous, glossy, dark green, side veins acute, moderately to densely reticulate with erose veinlets, intramarginal vein parallel to and remote from margin, oil glands few, intersectional, or absent. Inflorescence terminal compound and sometimes with single umbels in subterminal axils also, peduncles 0.7–2 cm long, buds 7, 9 or 11 per umbel, sessile or with pedicels to 0.4 cm long. Mature buds clavate to oblong to ovoid, 0.6–1 cm long, 0.3–0.4 cm wide, green to brown, smooth, without longitudinal ridges, scar absent (both inner and outer opercula held until flowering), operculum conical to rounded, stamens inflexed or irregularly flexed, anthers adnate, oblong or globoid, dehiscing by lateral pores, style long, stigma blunt or pin-head shaped, locules 4 or 5 each with 4 vertical ovule rows. Flowers white, pink, mauve or purple. Fruit sessile or with pedicels to 0.4 cm long, sub-cylindrical, cup-shaped or barrel-shaped, 0.6–1 cm long, 0.5–0.8 cm wide, disc descending, valves 4 or 5, enclosed. Seeds brown or grey, 0.7–1.5 mm long, ovoid or flattened-ovoid, dorsal surface with shallow reticulum, hilum ventral. Cultivated seedlings (measured at node 10): cotyledons reniform to ±oblong; stems rounded to square in cross-section, sometimes slightly warty; leaves always petiolate, opposite for 3 to 6 nodes then alternate, broadly ovate, 4–8.5 cm long, 2–5 cm long, base truncate to rounded or tapering, dull, grey-green, sometimes slightly glaucous.
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Adult leaves broadly lanceolate to lanceolate; lamina 7–11 cm long, 1.2–2.2 cm wide, dull, green to dark green; lateral veins distinct, at 20°–35°; intramarginal vein up to 2 mm from margin. Peduncle angular or slightly flattened, 10–15 mm long. Buds ovoid to cylindrical; operculum hemispherical, 2–3 mm long, c. 4 mm wide; hypanthium obconical to obovoid, 4–5 mm long, c. 4 mm wide. Fruits subcylindrical or pyriform, without ribs, 6–9 mm long, 5–6 mm wide.
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