Mallees to 4 m tall. Forming a lignotuber.Bark smooth throughout, shedding in short ribbons, pale grey and pinkish grey over coppery to white.Branchlets lacking oil glands in the pith. Juvenile growth (coppice or wild seedling to 50 cm tall): stems rounded in cross-section; juvenile leaves very shortly petiolate, sub-opposite to alternate, orbicular (may be wider than long) to obcordate, 1.5–3 cm long, 1.5–3 cm wide, base tapering, margin subcrenulate to entire, apex usually emarginate.Adult leaves alternate, petioles 0.5–1.7 cm long; blade lanceolate, 5–8.5 cm long, 1–1.8 cm wide, base tapering to petiole, margin entire, apex pointed, side-veins at an acute or wider angle to midrib, reticulation dense, intramarginal vein remote from margin, oil glands numerous, irregular, intersectional. Inflorescence axillary unbranched, peduncles 0.5–1.5 cm long, buds ?11 to more than 15 per umbel, sessile to shortly pedicellate (pedicels 0–0.3 cm long). Mature buds squatly ovoid to fusiform (0.8–0.9 cm long, 0.4–0.45 cm wide), scar present, operculum conical to beaked, stamens inflexed, anthers reniform, versatile, dorsifixed, dehiscing by short lateral slits, style long and straight, stigma blunt to slightly rounded, locules 3(4), the placentae each with 4 vertical rows of ovules. Flowers creamy white. Fruit sessile or shortly pedicellate (pedicels 0–0.2 cm long), flattened and truncate-globose, crowded, 0.5–0.6 cm long, 0.6–1 cm wide, disc level, valves 3(4), at rim level or the fragile tips exserted. Seeds grey-brown, 1.5–2.5 mm long, ovoid or flattened-ovoid, dorsal surface smooth, hilum ventral.Cultivated seedlings (measured at ca node 10): cotyledons Y-shaped (bisected); stems rounded in cross-section, smooth or slightly warty; leaves very shortly petiolate, opposite for ca 7 to 9 nodes then alternate, more or less orbicular to obcordate (often wider than long), 1–3 cm long, 1–3 cm wide, base tapering or rounded, margin subcrenulate to entire, apex markedly emarginate, dull, grey-green.
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