Mallee or small tree to 8 m tall. Forming a lignotuber. Bark rough on part or all of trunk and branches to 6 cm diameter, stringy, grey or brown, branches smooth above. Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): stem rounded in cross-section, scabrid; juvenile leaves always petiolate (petioles 0.5–0.7 cm), alternate, broadly ovate rarely elliptical, 4–7 cm long, 3–4 cm wide, leaf-bases rounded, discolorous, glossy above, green; new growth tips, stems and at least the undersides of leaves scabrid with the remains of stellate hairs for at least 1 m in height of coppice. Adult leaves alternate, petiole 1–2 cm long; blade broadly lanceolate to falcate, 6–12 cm long, 1.9–3.7 cm wide, base oblique or tapering to petiole, concolorous, glossy, green, side-veins at an acute or wider angle to midrib, reticulation obscure or sparse, intramarginal vein parallel to and well removed from margin, oil glands island. Inflorescence axillary unbranched, peduncles 0.4–1.2 cm long, buds in umbels of 7, 9 or ?11 per umbel, sessile. Mature buds oblong, 0.5–1 cm long, 0.3–0.4 cm wide, warty, scar absent, operculum conical to rounded, stamens irregularly flexed, anthers reniform to cordate, versatile, dorsifixed, dehiscing by confluent slits, style long, stigma tapered, locules 3 or 4, the placentae each with 2 vertical ovule rows. Flowers white. Fruit sessile, cup-shaped, hemispherical or truncate-globose, 0.5–0.7 cm long, 0.8–1.2 cm wide, clustered together but not compressed laterally, disc weakly to strongly raised-convex, valves 3 or 4, near rim level. Seeds brown, 1.6–2.2 mm long, pyramidal or obliquely pyramidal, dorsal surface smooth, hilum terminal. Cultivated seedlings (measured at ca node 10): cotyledons reniform; stems rounded in cross-section, stellate-hairy; leaves opposite for at least 7 nodes, petiolate, ovate to broadly so, 5–8 cm long, 4–5.5 cm wide, base truncate to rounded, margin irregular, discolorous, glossy, green above, sparsely to moderately stellate-hairy.
Home