Mallee to 3 m tall. Forming a lignotuber. Bark wholly smooth, light grey to greenish grey over brown, shedding in strips. Branchlets lacking oil glands in the pith. Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): stems rounded in cross-section, warty or smooth; juvenile leaves sessile and opposite to sub-opposite, elliptical, 2.5–4.5 cm long, 1–1.5 cm wide, grey-green, dull. Adult leaves alternate, petioles 0.5–1.8 cm long; blade narrowly elliptical to narrowly lanceolate or ± narrowly oblanceolate, 4.5–9.5 cm long, 0.5–1.7 cm wide, base tapering to petiole, margin entire, apex finely pointed, glossy, green, usually side-veins greater than 45° to midrib but sometimes with side-veins acute, reticulation dense, intramarginal vein present, oil glands intersectional. Inflorescence axillary unbranched, peduncles rounded or ± flattened, 0.5–2 cm long, buds 7, 9 or 11 per umbel, pedicels 0.1–0.5 cm long. Mature buds ovoid to diamond-shaped (0.7–1.2 cm long, 0.4–0.5 cm wide), scar present, operculum bluntly to acutely conical (0.3–0.5 cm long), stamens inflexed, anthers cuneate-cuboid, adnate to filament apex (rigidly basifixed), dehiscing by sub-terminal pores, a few of the innermost stamens imperfectly formed, style long and straight, stigma tapered, locules 3(4), the placentae each with 4 vertical rows of ovules. Flowers creamy white. Fruit pedicellate (pedicels 0.1–0.3 cm long), shortly cylindrical to stoutly barrel-shaped, 0.5–0.7 cm long, 0.5–0.8 cm wide, disc raised slightly at outer edge then descending or flattish, valves 3(4), more or less enclosed. Seeds brown to brown-grey, 1–2.2 mm long, flattened-ovoid, dorsal surface usually longitudinally furrowed, surface smooth, hilum ventral. Cultivated seedlings (measured at node 10): cotyledons Y-shaped (bisected); stems rounded in cross-section; leaves sessile and opposite for 11 to 18 nodes, rarely for as few as 8 nodes, then leaves becoming alternate, elliptic-oblong to ovate, 1.3–4 cm long, 0.5–2 cm wide, base rounded to tapering, margins sometimes minutely denticulate due to warts, slightly discolorous, dark green above, dull.
Home