Straggly mallee to 4 m tall. Forming a lignotuber. Bark minnirichi throughout, reddish brown. Branchlets glaucous; lacking oil glands in the pith. Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): not seen; epicormic growth on lower trunks is like adult foliage.Adult leaves opposite, sub-opposite or becoming alternate, petioles 0.5–1 cm long; blade orbicular to broadly elliptical to obovate, 2.5–3.5 cm long, 2–3 cm wide, base tapering to petiole, apex rounded and sometimes apiculate, or emarginate, concolorous, dull, grey-green rarely slightly glaucous, side-veins greater than 45° to midrib, reticulation dense, intramarginal vein present, oil glands few, intersectional. Inflorescences axillary unbranched, peduncles 1–1.5 cm long, buds 7 per umbel, pedicels 0.5–0.8 cm long. Mature buds ovoid (1.3–1.5 cm long, 0.3–0.6 cm wide), glaucous, scar present, operculum conical and up to 3 times the length of the hypanthium (0.9–1.2 cm long), stamens erect, anthers oblong, versatile, dehiscing by lateral slits, style long and usually conspicuously twisted apically, stigma blunt, locules (3)4, the placentae each with 6 vertical ovule rows. Flowers creamy white to pale yellow. Fruit pedicellate (pedicels 0.4–0.5 cm long), shallowly and broadly obconical, 0.5–0.6 cm long, 0.8–1.1 cm wide, usually glaucous, disc level to slightly raised and convex, valves (3)4, strongly exserted and surmounted by remnant parts of the style. Seeds brown, 1–1.7 mm long, cuboid with rounded corners or ovoid, the dorsal surface shallowly reticulate, hilum more or less terminal.Cultivated seedlings (measured at node 10): cotyledons Y-shaped (bisected); stems rounded in cross-section, glaucous; leaves always shortly petiolate, opposite for ca 7 nodes then sub-opposite, never becoming consistently alternate, orbicular to wider than long, 1.5–3 cm long, 1.5–3.5 cm wide, dull, greyish green or slightly glaucous.
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