Tree to 20 m tall. Ironbark throughout, dark grey to black. Forming a lignotuber. Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): stem rounded or square in cross-section; juvenile leaves opposite for a few pairs, petiolate, becoming alternate, lanceolate, 5.5–9 cm long, 1–1.5 cm wide, green. Adult leaves alternate, petiole 0.8–2 cm long; blade narrowly lanceolate to lanceolate, 7–14 cm long, 0.7–2 cm wide, base tapering to petiole, concolorous, dull, green to grey-green, side-veins greater than 45° to midrib, densely to very densely reticulate, intramarginal vein parallel to and just within margin or well-removed from it, oil glands island or intersectional. Inflorescence terminal compound, (rarely axillary compound in axils below this), peduncles 0.5–1 cm long, buds 7 per umbel, pedicels 0.2–0.7 cm long. Mature buds ovoid to obovoid to diamond-shaped, 0.4–0.5 cm long, 0.2–0.3 cm wide, usually green, scar present, operculum conical to rounded and narrower than hypanthium, stamens inflexed, with outer staminodes, anthers adnate, positioned obliquely at filament tip, cuboid, dehiscing by terminal pores, style long, stigma pin-head, locules 3 or 4, the placentae each with 4 vertical ovule rows. Flowers white. Fruit on pedicels 0.3–0.7 cm long, cup-shaped, obconical or truncate-globose, 0.3–0.6 cm long, 0.3–0.6 cm wide, disc descending, valves 3 or 4, near rim level or enclosed. Seeds brown, 0.8–1.5 mm long, flattened-ovoid, often pointed at one end, dorsal surface pitted, hilum ventral. Cultivated seedlings (measured at ca node 10): cotyledons reniform to oblong; stems square in cross-section; leaves always petiolate, opposite for ca 5 nodes then alternate, narrowly lanceolate to linear, 3–8.5 cm long, 0.5–2.5 cm wide, base tapering, green.
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