Mallee to 15 m high, spreading or erect. Bark at first smooth, red-brown, later deciduous in longitudinally curling flakes. Juvenile leaves opposite, sessile, orbicular or suborbicular, grey-green. Intermediate leaves opposite or subopposite, petiolate or almost sessile, ovate, grey-green. Adult leaves alternate, lanceolate to narrowly lanceolate, or sometimes not present. Umbels 7-flowered; peduncle and pedicels slender. Buds ovoid, glaucous; operculum conical; hypanthium hemispherical. Fruits hemispherical, glaucous; disc flat or slightly ascending; valves 4, strongly exserted. Seeds irregularly cuboid, brown. [For more recent description see subspecies profiles-Editor]