Mallet to 5 m tall. Lignotuber absent.Bark smooth throughout, pale grey and whitish, sometimes pale pink to pale coppery.Branchlets lacking oil glands in the pith.Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): not seen.Adult leaves alternate, petioles 0.5–1 cm long; blade narrowly elliptical to narrowly oblanceolate, 4–7 cm long, 0.7–1.5 cm wide, base tapering to petiole, margin entire, apex pointed, concolorous, green, glossy, side-veins acute, reticulation moderate to dense and broken, intramarginal vein remote from margin, oil glands obscurely island, irregularly shaped.Inflorescence axillary unbranched, peduncles strap-like, down-turned at bud maturity, 3.5–7.5 cm long, buds ?11 to 15 or more per umbel, pedicels absent. Buds syncarpous (all of the buds in a cluster are completely joined by the hypanthium (base) only, the upper part of each bud remains free. At maturity the combined length of the fused part plus operculum is ca 4.5–6.5 cm, whilst width of individual buds measured at the base of the operculum is 0.7–1.2 cm); scar present (outer operculum lost early) but may be difficult to see at bud maturity, operculum often curved, 5–8 times the length of the fused part of the bud (opercula 3.8-5 cm long), stamens completely erect, anthers narrowly oblong, versatile, dorsifixed, dehiscing by longitudinal slits, style long and straight, stigma blunt, small, locules 3, the placentae each with 4 vertical rows of ovules. Flowers greenish.Fruit on down-turned peduncles, syncarpous, the individual capsules in the woody mass 0.9–1.5 cm wide, length not measurable, dehiscing by elliptical holes formed as the 3 valves split along the sutures but remain ± fused apically, disc covering the surface of the valves.Seeds black, 1–4 mm long, ovoid to more or less angularly so, dorsal surface shallowly reticulate, hilum ventral/terminal.Cultivated seedlings (measured at node 10): cotyledons Y-shaped (bisected), robust; stems at first triquetrous but soon rounded in cross-section, scabrid; leaves always petiolate, opposite for 3 to 6 nodes then alternate, deltoid to ovate, 4–5.5 cm long, 2.5–5 cm wide, dull, green to grey-green; stem, petioles quite scabrid, lamina and margins slightly scabrid, at least until nodes 12–15, with bristle glands.
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