Tree to 35 m tall. Forming a lignotuber.Grey ironbark throughout or on trunk and larger branches only, smooth bark pale grey.Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): stems square in cross-section; juvenile leaves petiolate, opposite for 4 to 7 nodes then alternate, ovate becoming lanceolate, discolorous, glossy, green.Adult leaves alternate, petiolate; blade lanceolate, 9–20 cm long, 1.8–4.8 cm wide, base tapering evenly to petiole, margin entire, slightly discolorous (rarely concolorous), more or less glossy, green, side-veins acute or at greater than 45° to midrib, densely to very densely reticulate, intramarginal vein parallel to and just within margin or well removed from it, oil glands few, mostly intersectional.Inflorescence terminal compound, peduncles 0.3–1.4 cm long, buds 7 per umbel, pedicels 0.3–0.6 cm long. Mature buds ovoid to diamond-shaped, 0.6–0.7 cm long, 0.3–0.5 cm wide, scar present, operculum beaked to conical, most stamens inflexed but usually a few irregularly flexed, with outer staminodes, anthers adnate, positioned obliquely at filament tip, cuboid, dehiscing by terminal pores, style long, stigma pinhead, locules 3 or 4, the placentae each with 4 vertical ovule rows. Flowers white.Fruit on pedicels 0.3–0.5 cm long, obconical or barrel-shaped, 0.5–0.8 cm long, 0.5–0.7 cm wide, disc descending, valves 3 or 4, enclosed.Seeds brown, 1.4–2 mm long, flattened-ovoid or pointed at one end, dorsal surface shallowly reticulate, hilum ventral.Cultivated seedlings (measured at ca node 10): cotyledons oblong; stems square in cross-section; leaves always petiolate, opposite until nodes 4 to 7 then alternate, ovate to broadly so, 7.5–9.5 cm long, 2.5–5.5 cm wide, base tapering, discolorous, dull, green, becoming distinctly glossy after node 5.
Home