Mallee 0.5 to 4 m tall, low plants forming thickets and may be procumbent. Forming a lignotuber.Bark rough flaky grey-black, red-grey or grey-brown box-type on trunk often extending to branches 6 cm diameter, upper branches smooth-barked and grey to pinkish-grey or orange. Branchlets have oil glands in the pith.Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): not seen.Adult leaves alternate, petioles 0.3–1 cm long; blade linear to narrowly elliptical 4.7–9.8 cm long, 0.4–1 cm wide, base tapering to petiole, apex pointed or rounded and apiculate, concolorous, dull at first becoming glossy, green, side-veins at an acute or wider angle to midrib, reticulation sparse or obscure, intramarginal vein present and close to margin, oil glands scattered, island. or intersectional.Inflorescence axillary single, peduncles (0.1)0.3–0.9 cm long, buds 7 or more commonly 9 per umbel, usually shortly pedicellate (pedicels 0–0.2 cm long). Mature buds obovoid to pyriform (0.8–1.3 cm long, 0.4–0.7 cm wide), rarely almost sessile, outer operculum shed very early in bud development, scar present but may be hard to see on mature buds, inner operculum rounded, stamens irregularly flexed or mostly inflexed and some irregular, anthers oblong, versatile, dehiscing by longitudinal slits (non-confluent), style long, stigma blunt or slightly dilated, locules usually 3 or 4, the ovules arranged in 4 vertical rows on the placentae. Flowers white.Fruit sessile or more usually pedicellate, pedicels 0–0.3 cm long, obconical to more or less cupular, 0.5–0.9 cm long, 0.5–0.8(1) cm wide, disc descending vertically, valves 3 or 4, usually exserted.Seeds dark brown to grey-brown, flattened-ovoid, 1.3–2.2 mm long, surface scarcely reticulate, hilum ventral.Cultivated seedlings (measured at node 10): cotyledons bisected; stems more or less squared in cross-section, smooth or slightly warty, non-glaucous; leaves always shortly petiolate (petiole to 0.2 cm), opposite for ca 8 nodes then alternate, lower leaves narrowly elliptical becoming shortly and narrowly lanceolate or more commonly linear by node 10, 3.2-9 cm long, 0.3-0.6(1.0) cm wide, base tapering, apex more or less pointed, margin entire, green to green-blue, non-glaucous..
Home