Tree to 25 m tall. Forming a lignotuber.Ironbark, dark grey to black. Branches ca 3 cm diameter or narrower often smooth-barked.Oil glands sometimes present in the pith of the branchlets.Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): stem square in cross-section; juvenile leaves opposite only at lowest node, then becoming alternate, petiolate, lanceolate to broadly lanceolate or ovate, 9.5–14 cm long, 2–4 cm wide, base tapering, apex pointed, glossy green, concolorous.Adult leaves alternate, petiole (1)1.5–3(3.5) cm long; blade lanceolate, sometimes falcate, 9–18 cm long, 1.5–3.3 cm wide, base tapering to petiole, concolorous to slightly discolorous, normally glossy, green, rarely dull, side-veins usually at an angle less than 45° to the midrib, sometimes slightly greater than 45° to midrib, densely to very densely reticulate, intramarginal vein parallel to and well removed from the margin, oil glands usually sparse and intersectional, or absent.Inflorescence terminal compound, or axillary compound, peduncles 0.7–2.5 cm long, buds 7 per umbel, pedicels 0.4–0.8 cm long. Mature buds obovoid to pyriform, 0.7–0.9 cm long, 0.4–0.5 cm wide, rarely ovoid, sometimes angled on the lower part of the hypanthium, scar present, operculum conical to rarely slightly beaked and narrower and much shorter than the hypanthium, stamens inflexed, with outer staminodes, anthers adnate, positioned obliquely at filament tip, cuboid, dehiscing by terminal pores, style long, stigma pin-head, locules 4 or 5, the placentae each with 4 vertical ovule rows. Flowers white.Fruit pedicellate (pedicels 0.2–1 cm long), usually obconical, sometimes ± barrel-shaped, 0.6–1 cm long, 0.5–0.7 cm wide, disc descending, valves 4 or 5, enclosed.Seeds brown, 1–2 mm long, flattened-ovoid, shallowly reticulate, hilum ventral. Cultivated seedlings (measured at ca node 10): cotyledons reniform to oblong; stems square in cross-section; leaves always petiolate, opposite for ca 3 to 5 nodes then alternate, lanceolate to broadly lanceolate to ovate, 7–15 cm long, 3–6 cm wide, base tapering, glossy green.
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