Mallet to 8 m tall. Lignotuber absent.Bark smooth throughout, pale shiny grey over grey-brown to bronze.Branchlets have oil glands in the pith. Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): stems rounded in cross-section; juvenile leaves sessile to subsessile, held erect, opposite at lowest node then alternate, linear to narrowly elliptical, 4.5–8 cm long, 0.5–0.8 cm wide, margin entire or distantly notched, apex pointed, green, "glazed"; like adult foliage by ca tall.Adult leaves held erect, alternate, sessile or with petioles to 0.8 cm long; blade linear to narrowly elliptical, 3–7.5 cm long, 0.4–1.1 cm wide, base tapering to petiole, margin entire or distantly indented, apex pointed, concolorous, glossy, green, the surface appearing "glazed", no venation visible except midrib and sometimes parts of intramarginal vein, all other venation obscured by numerous round oil glands.Inflorescence axillary unbranched, peduncles 0.5–2.5 cm long, buds 3 per umbel. Mature buds ovoid-fusiform (1.3–2.1 cm long, 0.5–0.7 cm wide), the hypanthium with 2 obvious ridges extending narrowly wing-like to the flattened pedicel, pedicels to 0.8 cm long (one or 2 lesser ridges sometimes also present on hypanthium and do not extend to pedicel), scar present, operculum pointed or blunt, as long as to twice the length of the hypanthium, slightly warty, stamens erect, anthers versatile, dorsifixed, dehiscing by longitudinal slits, style long and straight arising from a conical ovary roof, stigma flat or slightly dilated, locules 3 or 4, the placentae each with 4 vertical rows of ovules (sometimes 6, sometimes 4 plus 2 incomplete rows). Flowers creamy white.Fruit normally pedicellate, pedicels to 1 cm long, obconical and with 2 ribs, 0.7–1.5 cm long, 0.6–1.1 cm wide, disc descending, hidden by the conspicuous flat persistent staminophore, valves 3 or 4, at rim level or appearing exserted due to the style fragments remaining on the valve-tips.Seeds brown, 0.8–2 mm long, ovoid to flattened-ovoid, dorsal surface clearly but shallowly reticulate (not pitted), hilum ventral.Cultivated seedlings (measured at node 10): cotyledons Y-shaped (bisected); stems rounded in cross-section; leaves always subsessile to shortly petiolate, opposite for 3–5 nodes then alternate, linear to very narrowly lanceolate, 5.5–7.5 cm long, 0.5–1 cm wide, dull, green at lower nodes becoming glossy by ca node 8. Lamina, midrib and margin have scattered warts and may feel slightly roughened when fresh.
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