Mallee to 5 m tall. Forming a lignotuber. Bark rough for up to 2 m of trunks, loose, flaky to ribbony, grey to blackish brown, sometimes smooth throughout, silvery grey to pale brown-grey. 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, alternate, ovate to lanceolate, 2.5–7 cm long, 1.5–2.5 cm wide, dull, blue-grey (not glaucous). Adult leaves alternate, petioles 0.7–2 cm long; blade lanceolate, 5.5–10.5 cm long, 1–2.2 cm wide, base tapering to petiole, margin entire, apex pointed, concolorous, initially dull and bluish green maturing glossy green, side-veins at an acute or wider angle to midrib, reticulation sparse, clear, intramarginal vein present or obscure, oil glands numerous, island, rounded. Inflorescence axillary unbranched, pendulous, peduncles narrowly angled to flattened and widest apically, 1.5–4.7 cm long, buds 7 per umbel, pedicellate (pedicels 0.4–0.8 cm long). Mature buds elongated to asymetrically fusiform (2–3 cm long, 0.5–0.7 cm wide), scar present (outer operculum shed early), inner operculum horn-shaped, 2 to 3 times the length of the hypanthium, stamens erect, anthers oblong, versatile, dorsifixed, dehiscing by longitudinal slits, style long and straight, stigma blunt, locules 4(5), the placentae each with 4 vertical rows of ovules. Flowers cream to pale yellow or yellowish green. Fruit down-turned, pedicellate (pedicels 0.4–0.8 cm long), usually cylindrical or less commonly obconical, 1–1.5 cm long, 0.7–1.2 cm wide, disc level at first then descending, valves 4(5), held at rim level. Seeds blackish brown, 1–2 mm long, ovoid to flattened-ovoid, dorsal surface shallowly reticulate, hilum ventral. Cultivated seedlings (measured at node 10): cotyledons Y-shaped (bisected); stems rounded in cross-section; leaves always petiolate, opposite for 3 or 4 nodes, ovate to lanceolate, 5.5–9 cm long, 1.5–2.5 cm wide, dull, grey-green.
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