Tree to 25 m tall. Forming a lignotuber.Ironbark on the trunk and larger branches, dark grey, hard and deeply furrowed longitudinally. Small to medium sized branches with white to pink to coppery smooth bark.Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): stem square in cross-section; juvenile leaves always petiolate, opposite for ca 2 nodes then becoming alternate, narrowly lanceolate, 9.7–13.5 cm long, 0.7–1.6(2) cm wide, base tapering, slightly discolorous, green.Adult leaves alternate, petiole 1–2 cm long; blade lanceolate to falcate, 6.5–13(17) cm long, 0.8–2.2 cm wide, base tapering to petiole, discolorous, dull, green, side-veins greater than 45° to midrib, very densely reticulate, intramarginal vein parallel to and very close to the margin, oil glands intersectional or obscure.Inflorescence terminal compound, peduncles 0.6–1.5 cm long, buds 7 per umbel, pedicels 0.2–0.3 cm long. Mature buds fusiform to diamond-shaped, ca 0.4 cm long, 0.2–0.3 cm wide, scar present, operculum conical, narrower than the hypanthium at the join, stamens inflexed, with outer staminodes, anthers adnate, positioned obliquely at filament tip, cuboid, dehiscing by terminal pores, style long, stigma pin-head shaped, locules 4 or 5, the placentae each with 4 vertical ovule rows. Flowers white.Fruit pedicellate (pedicels 0.1–0.4 cm long), truncate-ovoid to truncate-globose to hemispherical or cup-shaped, 0.4–0.5 cm long, 0.4–0.6 cm wide, disc descending, valves 4 or 5, valve tips near rim level or enclosed.Seeds brown, 1.2–2 mm long, flattened-ovoid, dorsal surface shallowly reticulate, hilum ventral. Cultivated seedlings (measured at ca node 10): cotyledons small, reniform; stems square in cross-section; leaves always petiolate, opposite for 4–7 nodes then alternate, lanceolate, 5.4–8 cm long, 1.3–1.5 cm wide, base tapering, dull, green, discolorous.
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