Mallee to 4 tall, or (on Mt Saddleback) a tree to 6 m. Forming a lignotuber. Bark usually rough over most of the stems, flaky or fibrous, usually held in loose slabs, light grey to yellowish-brown, rarely almost smooth-barked. Branchlets lacking oil glands in the pith. Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): stems square to rounded in cross-section; juvenile leaves alternate, shortly petiolate, elliptical to ovate, 2–7.5 cm long, 1.4–3 cm wide, bluish green. Adult leaves alternate, petiole 0.5–2 cm long; blade narrowly lanceolate to lanceolate, occasionally falcate, (4.5)5.5–12 cm long, (0.8)1–2 cm wide, base tapering to petiole, concolorous, slightly glossy (rarely dull), light green, side-veins at an acute or wider angle to midrib, moderately to densely reticulate, intramarginal vein parallel to and just within margin, oil glands mostly intersectional. Inflorescence axillary unbranched, peduncles 0.5–1.2 cm long, buds more than 7 per umbel, pedicels 0.2–0.4 cm long. Mature buds narrowly ovoid (0.8–1.1 cm long, 0.3–0.4 cm wide), scar present, operculum beaked (0.5–0.8 cm long), stamens irregularly flexed or rarely inflexed, anthers weakly versatile or adnate, basifixed, globoid, dehiscing by lateral pores, style long, stigma tapered, locules 3 or 4, the placentae each with 4 vertical ovule rows. Flowers white. Fruit pedicellate (pedicels 0.2–0.3 cm long), usually urceolate, occasionally truncate-globose to cup-shaped, 0.4–0.8 cm long, 0.4–0.7 cm wide, disc descending, valves 3 or 4, valve tips strongly exserted due to fragile style remnants. Seeds brown or grey, 0.9–1.1 mm long, ovoid or flattened-ovoid, occasionally with shallow longitudinal furrows on otherwise smooth dorsal surface, hilum ventral. Cultivated seedlings (measured at node 10): cotyledons Y-shaped (bisected); stems square in cross-section; leaves opposite, sessile and linear for the first 5 or 6 nodes then alternate, shortly petiolate and becoming elliptical to ovate further up the stem, 2–4 cm long, 0.8–2 cm wide, dull green.
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