Tree or mallee to 10 m tall. Forms a lignotuber. Bark rough over part or all of trunk, fibrous to flaky, dark grey, then becoming smooth, grey-brown to brown. Branchlets with oil glands in the pith, sometimes sparse and only found at the nodes. Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): not seen. Adult leaves alternate, petioles 0.7–1 cm long; blade narrowly lanceolate to falcate, 4.5–9.5 cm long, 0.5–1.5 cm wide, base tapering to petiole, margin entire, apex pointed, concolorous, glossy, green, side-veins acute or sometimes at an angle greater than 45° to midrib, reticulation usually moderate to dense and broken, sometimes obscured by the island and intersectional oil glands, intramarginal vein present. Inflorescence axillary unbranched, peduncles narrowly flattened, 0.5–1 cm long, buds 7 to 15 per umbel, pedicels 0.2 cm long. Mature buds obovoid (0.5–0.8 cm long, 0.3–0.4 cm wide), scar present (outer operculum lost early), inner operculum rounded and apiculate to shortly beaked (0.15–0.2 cm long), stamens inflexed, anthers cuboid to wedge-shaped, versatile, dorsifixed, dehiscing by longitudinal slits, style long and straight, stigma quite blunt, locules 3(4), the placentae each with 4 vertical rows of ovules. Flowers white. Fruit pedicellate (pedicels 0.1–0.2 cm long), barrel-shaped, 0.4–0.6 cm long, 0.3–0.4 cm wide, disc descending vertically, valves 3(4), enclosed. Seeds brown, 1–1.5 mm long, flattened-ovoid sometimes pointed at one end, dorsal surface clearly but shallowly reticulate, hilum ventral. Cultivated seedlings (measured at node 10): cotyledons reniform; stems rounded in cross-section, smooth or sometimes slightly warty; leaves always petiolate, opposite for 5 to 7 nodes then alternate, ovate-deltoid at lower nodes becoming narrowly ovate, 5.5–7 cm long, 2.5–4 cm wide, dull green.
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