Mallee to ca 4 m tall. Forming a lignotuber.Bark rough, grey and coarsely flaky for lower part of stems, smooth above, pale grey to creamy yellow and pale brown; branchlets glaucous.Branchlets with oil glands in the pith. Juvenile growth (coppice or wild seedling to 50 cm tall): stems square in cross-section, glaucous; juvenile leaves always petiolate, alternate, ovate to broadly lanceolate, 4.5–10 cm long, 2.5–5 cm wide, base truncate, rounded or tapered, dull, glaucous. Adult leaves alternate, petiole 1.2–2.8 cm long; blade lanceolate, 7.8–15 cm long, 1.3–3.5 cm wide, base tapering to petiole, concolorous, thick, side-veins greater than 45° to midrib, reticulation dense or obscure due to leaf thickness, intramarginal vein close to margin, oil glands intersectional. Inflorescence axillary unbranched, peduncles 0.5–1.5 cm long, buds 7 per umbel, usually pedicellate, rarely sessile (pedicels (0)0.1–0.4 cm long). Mature buds cylindrical to obovoid (0.8–1.4 cm long, 0.4–0.8 cm wide), glaucous, scar present, operculum conical to rounded (0.4–0.7 cm long), rarely wider than hypanthium, conspicuously radially striate, stamens inflexed, anthers cuboid to wedge-shaped, versatile, sub-basifixed, dehiscing by longitudinal slits (non-confluent), style long, stigma blunt, locules (4)5, the placentae each with 4 vertical rows of ovules. Flowers white. Fruit usually pedicellate, rarely sessile (pedicels (0)0.1–0.4 cm long), cupular to barrel-shaped or obconical, 0.6–1 cm long, 0.7–1.1 cm wide, often ribbed slightly, glaucous at first but weathering non-glaucous, disc descending, valves (4)5, at rim level. Seeds ruby-red and lustrous, 1.5–2.8 mm long, flattened-ovoid, sometimes slightly angular, dorsal surface shallowly reticulate, hilum ventral.Cultivated seedlings (measured at ca node 10): cotyledons reniform; stems square in cross-section, glaucous; leaves always petiolate, opposite for 4 or 5 nodes, then alternate, deltoid to ovate, 3.5–7 cm long, 3–5.5 cm wide, glaucous.
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