Mallet (tree) to 5 m tall. Lignotuber absent.Bark smooth throughout, dark grey to black over greenish yellow, shedding in strips.Branchlets with oil glands in the pith.Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): not seen.Adult leaves alternate, petioles 1.3–2.5 cm long; blade usually lanceolate, (4.2)5.5–8.3(9.5) cm long, (1.2)1.4–2.5(3.3) cm wide, base tapering to petiole, margin entire or rarely subcrenulate, apex pointed, concolorous, glossy, green, surface appearing "glazed", side-veins acute or obscure, reticulation obscure, intramarginal vein remote from margin, oil glands numerous.Inflorescence axillary unbranched, peduncles broadly flattened, usually down-turned, 1.2–2.8 cm long, buds 7 per umbel, sessile to very shortly pedicellate (pedicels 0–0.4 cm long). Mature buds more or less ovoid (1–1.6 cm long, 0.6–1 cm wide), egg-in-eggcup, i.e. the operculum narrower than the hypanthium at the join, scar present (outer operculum shed very early), inner operculum rounded-conical, smooth, hypanthium with 2 prominent longitudinal ridges and often 1 or 2 less prominent ridges, stamens all inflexed but to varying degrees, anthers narrowly oblong, versatile, dorsifixed, dehiscing by longitudinal slits, style long and straight, stigma blunt, locules 5 or 6, the placentae each with 4 vertical rows of ovules. Flowers red, pink, yellow-green or greenish-cream.Fruit sessile or subsessile (pedicel 0–0.5 cm long), obconical to campanulate, with 2–4 narrow longitudinal ridges, 0.9–1.4(1.7) cm long, 0.8–1.3(1.5) cm wide, rim broad, disc descending, valves 5 or 6, rim level or scarcely enclosed (visible).Seeds grey-brown to brown, 1–2.5 mm long, flattened-ovoid, dorsal surface clearly but shallowly reticulate, hilum ventral.Cultivated seedlings (measured at node 10): cotyledons Y-shaped (bisected); not grown yet beyond this stage.
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