Mallee to 3 m tall. Forming a lignotuber.Bark smooth throughout, coppery or bronze.Branchlets with oil glands in the pith.Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): stems rounded in cross-section; juvenile leaves always petiolate, opposite for few nodes then alternate, broadly lanceolate, 6–12 cm long, 1–1.5 cm wide, dull, blue-green (non-glaucous).Adult leaves alternate, petioles 0.8–1.8 cm long; blade lanceolate, 6–12 cm long, 1–1.5 cm wide, base tapering to petiole, margin entire, apex acute, concolorous, glossy, dark green, side-veins acute, reticulation sparse to moderate, intramarginal vein remote from margin, oil glands numerous, island, irregular.Inflorescence axillary unbranched, or at times apparently terminal due to loss of apical vegetative bud, peduncles flattened, 0.5–1.5 cm long, buds 7 per umbel, stoutly pedicellate (pedicels (0.2)0.4–0.6 cm long). Mature buds obovoid to pyriform (0.7–0.9 cm long, 0.3–0.5 cm wide), scar present, operculum rounded and sometimes apiculate or bluntly conical, stamens inflexed with their filaments geniculate, anthers cuboid, versatile, sub-basifixed, dehiscing by longitudinal slits, style long and straight, the base tapering and articulate in a pit in the ovary roof, stigma blunt to rounded, locules 3 or 4, the placentae each with 4 vertical rows of ovules. Flowers white.Fruit pedicellate (pedicels 0.2–0.7 cm long), obconical or at times almost cylindrical, 0.7–0.9 cm long, 0.4–0.7 cm wide, disc descending vertically, valves 3 or 4, enclosed to near rim level.Seeds brown, 0.7–1.5 mm long, ovoid to flattened-ovoid or cuboid but scarcely angular, dorsal surface shallowly reticulate, hilum ventral.Cultivated seedlings (measured at ca node 10): cotyledons Y-shaped (bisected); stems rounded in cross-section; leaves always petiolate, opposite for 3 to 6 nodes, lanceolate, 5–10 cm long, 1.2–3 cm wide, green, slightly glossy.
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