Usually a small tree to 10 m tall, occasionally taller to 15 m. Forming a lignotuber.Ironbark to the small branches, dark grey to black; branchlets usually glaucous but this wax fades with age.Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): stem square to rounded in cross-section, glaucous; juvenile leaves petiolate, alternate, ovate to broadly lanceolate, 8–19 cm long, 3.5–8 cm wide, base tapering to petiole, glaucous.Adult leaves alternate, petiole 1.7–3 (3.5) cm long; blade lanceolate, 8–15 (17.5) cm long, 1.4–3.4 cm wide, base tapering to petiole, concolorous, dull, blue-grey to glaucous, side-veins normally at an angle greater than 45° to midrib, densely reticulate, intramarginal vein parallel to and just within margin, oil glands intersectional.Inflorescence terminal compound, peduncles 0.5–1.2 cm long, buds usually 7 per umbel, pedicels(0.2)0.4–0.6 cm long. Mature buds obovoid to ovoid, 0.6–0.8 cm long, 0.4–0.5 cm wide, glaucous, scar usually present (first operculum sheds very early in bud development), operculum conical to rounded to sometimes slightly beaked, stamens irregularly flexed, anthers cuboid, adnate, slits or pores separate, style long, stigma pin-head shaped, locules 4, the placentae each with 4 vertical ovule rows. Flowers white.Fruit on pedicels 0.2–0.7 cm long, cup-shaped to hemispherical, 0.4–0.8 cm long, 0.5–0.8 cm wide, young fruit usually glaucous but this wax fades with age, disc level to descending, valves 4, tips near the rim or enclosed or sometimes slightly exserted.Seeds brown, 1–1.8 mm long, flattened-ovoid, dorsal surface shallowly reticulate, hilum ventral. Cultivated seedlings (measured at ca node 10): cotyledons oblong to reniform; stems square in cross-section; leaves always petiolate, opposite for 4–6 nodes then alternate, broadly lanceolate, 7.5–11 cm long, 3–7 cm wide, base tapering, margin entire, apex pointed, slightly discolorous, dull, grey-green.
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