Mallee to ca 4 m tall, spindly stems. Forming a lignotuber. Bark pale grey to grey and salmon-brown. Branchlets with oil glands in the pith. Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): stems rounded in cross-section; juvenile leaves always shortly petiolate, alternate, oblong-elliptical to linear, 3–6.5 cm long, 0.7–2 cm wide, green to grey-green, more or less glossy. Adult leaves erect, alternate, petioles 0.3–1.2 cm long; blade linear to narrowly elliptical, 3–7.7 cm long, 0.4–1.5 cm wide, base tapering to petiole, margin entire or distantly indented, concolorous, glossy, green, the surface appearing "glazed", apex usually pointed, side-veins acute or obscure, reticulation invisible, intramarginal vein usually obscure, oil glands numerous. Inflorescence axillary unbranched, pendulous, peduncles flattened, 1.5–3.5 cm long, buds 7 per umbel, pedicellate (pedicels 0.3–0.8 cm long). Mature buds asymmetrically fusiform (1.6–2.4 cm long, 0.5–0.6 cm wide), scar present (outer operculum shed early), operculum bluntly horn-shaped, ca 2–3 times the length of the hypanthium, stamens erect, anthers oblong, versatile, dorsifixed, dehiscing by longitudinal slits, style long and straight, stigma rounded, locules 4, the placentae each with 4 vertical rows of ovules. Flowers lemon-yellow, rarely pink to red. Fruit down-turned, pedicellate (pedicels 0.3–1 cm long), cupular to obconical, 0.8–1 cm long, 0.6–0.9 cm wide, disc descending, obscured by persistent staminophore, valves 4, held at rim level. Seeds dark brown, 0.7–2 mm long, ovoid to flattened-ovoid, dorsal surface shallowly and clearly reticulate, hilum ventral. Cultivated seedlings (measured at node 10): cotyledons Y-shaped (bisected); stems rounded in cross-section; leaves always shortly petiolate, opposite for 3 to 5 nodes then alternate, narrowly lanceolate, 6.5–8 cm long, 0.8–2.5 cm wide, dull, grey green becoming green.
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