Spreading trees to 15 m tall, or mallees to ca 4 m. Forming a lignotuber.Bark rough, extending to limbs to about 5 cm diameter, fibrous, peppermint-type, dark grey, smooth bark cream and pale grey.Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): stem rounded in cross-section, smooth or slightly warty; juvenile leaves opposite and sessile for many pairs, lanceolate, 6–9 cm long, 1.4–2.7 cm wide, bases stem-clasping, dull, blue-green to grey-green or green.Adult leaves alternate, petiole 0.5–1.3 cm long; blade lanceolate or more or less linear, (7.3)8-13(14) cm long, 0.7–1.8 cm wide, base tapering to petiole, concolorous, slightly glossy (rarely completely dull), blue-green to dark green, side-veins very acute to almost parallel to midrib, sparsely reticulate, intramarginal vein close to margin, oil glands island.Inflorescence axillary unbranched, peduncles 0.2–1.5 cm long, buds 11 to 25 per umbel, pedicellate (pedicels to 0.2–0.6 cm long). Mature buds obovoid or clavate, 0.3–0.4 cm long, 0.3–0.4 cm wide, green to yellow, scar absent, operculum usually rounded, stamens inflexed, anthers reniform to cordate, versatile, dorsifixed, dehiscing by confluent slits, style much shorter than bud cavity, stigma tapered, locules usually 4, the placentae each with 2 vertical ovule rows. Flowers white.Fruit with pedicels 0.1–0.6 m long, hemispherical, 0.4–0.6(0.7) cm long, 0.5–0.8(0.9) cm wide, disc slightly raised-convex to annular, or level, valves usually 4, near rim level or just enclosed.Seeds brown, 1–2.5 mm long, pyramidal or obliquely pyramidal, dorsal surface smooth, hilum terminal. Cultivated seedlings (measured at ca node 10): cotyledons reniform; stems rounded in cross-section, warty, non-glaucous; leaves sessile, opposite for many nodes (still opposite at node 15), lanceolate, 8.8–12.0 cm long, 1.5–2.7 cm wide, amplexicaul, margin entire, apex pointed, discolorous, blue-green to green.
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