Tree to 15 m tall or rarely a mallee. Forming a lignotuber.Bark rough over most or on the lower portion of stem, dark grey to grey-brown, fibrous to scaly, smooth bark above white to pink-grey.Branchlets lacking oil glands in the pith. Juvenile stem many-sided, juvenile leaves spirally arranged for many nodes ("heath-like") but by 50 cm tall becoming alternately arranged, sessile to shortly petiolate, linear to narrowly elliptic-oblong to narrowly lanceolate, 0.8-7.5 cm long, 0.2-1.7 cm wide, base tapering, margin entire, apex rounded to pointed, dull, grey-green.Adult leaves alternate, petioles (0.5)0.8–1.7 cm long; blade linear to narrowly lanceolate, (6)7–10(11) cm long, 0.5–1 cm wide, base tapering to petiole, margin entire, apex pointed, green, glossy, side-veins at an acute or wider angle to midrib, reticulation dense, intramarginal vein close to margin, oil glands large, round, numerous, intersectional.Inflorescence axillary unbranched, peduncles 0.7–1.5 cm long, buds 7, 9 or 11 per umbel, pedicels 0.2–0.5 cm long. Mature buds ovoid (0.5–0.8 cm long, 0.3 cm wide), scar present, operculum conical to rounded (0.2–0.5 cm long), stamens irregularly flexed, anthers more or less globular, basifixed and almost adnate, dehiscing by short lateral slits, style long and straight, stigma blunt, locules 3, the placentae each with 4 vertical rows of ovules. Flowers creamy white.Fruit pedicellate (pedicels 0.2–0.4 cm long), truncate-globose to barrel-shaped, 0.4–0.5 cm long, 0.4–0.5 cm wide, disc descending, valves appearing prominently exserted due to persistent fragile style remnants.Seeds brown-grey, 1–2 mm long, ovoid to flattened or depressed-ovoid, dorsal surface smooth, hilum ventral.Cultivated seedlings (measured at ca 25 cm tall): cotyledons Y-shaped (bisected), stems many-sided, leaves opposite for ca 3 nodes then becoming spirally arranged for many nodes ("heath-like"), sessile to subsessile, linear to very narrowly elliptic-oblong, 0.5–2.7 cm long, 0.2–0.7 cm wide, base tapering, margin entire, apex rounded to pointed, dull, grey-green to green. Lignotuber not visible as a swelling on seedling stem.
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