Mallee to 1.5 m tall. Forming a lignotuber.Bark rough, thin and flaky to hard and furrowed, grey to yellowish brown, for ca 0.5 m of trunk, smooth above, pale grey-brown. Branchlets lacking oil glands in the pith. Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): stems square in cross-section; juvenile leaves on coppice growth petiolate, alternate, ovate to lanceolate, 6.5–11.5 cm long, 2.5–4 cm wide, undulate, dull, bluish. Adult leaves alternate, petioles 0.9–2 cm long; blade lanceolate to falcate, 7.5–10.2 cm long, 1.4–2.3 cm wide, base tapering to petiole, margin entire, apex pointed, green and glossy, side-veins acute, reticulation sparse to moderate, intramarginal vein remote from margin, oil glands island, several per areole. Inflorescence apparently terminal compound, peduncles 0.4–1.5 cm long, buds 7 per umbel, pedicels 0.4–0.9 cm long. Mature buds ovoid, 0.7–0.8 cm long, 0.5–0.6 cm wide, scar absent, the single operculum conical, outer stamens held obliquely, inner inflexed, anthers oblong, versatile, dorsifixed, dehiscing by longitudinal slits not confluent, style long and straight, stigma tapered, locules 4(5), the placentae each with 2 vertical rows of ovules. Flowers white. Fruit pedicellate (pedicels 0.7–1 cm long), truncate-globose, 1–1.2 cm long, 1.1–1.4 cm wide, disc descending vertically, valves 4(5), near rim level. Seeds brown, 2–4 mm long, obliquely pyramidal, dorsal surface minutely roughened, curved to meet terminal hilum, margin expanded to form a ragged flange.Cultivated seedlings (measured at ca node 10): cotyledons reniform; stems rounded to square in cross-section; leaves opposite, sessile, amplexicaul to rounded and discolorous for 6 or 7 nodes then becoming shortly petiolate, then sub-opposite to alternate by ca node 8 or 9, ovate, 6–11 cm long, 2.5–5.2 cm wide, dull, mid-green, concolorous, the margins crinkled and minutely denticulate.
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