Mallee to 4 m tall, often rounded or domed. Forming a lignotuber. Bark with thin grey rough and fibrous for up to 0.5 m of trunks of larger plants or smooth throughout, grey and pale pinkish brown. Branchlets with pale oil glands in the pith, sometimes few and only at the nodes. Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): stems square in cross-section; juvenile leaves always petiolate, alternate, elliptical to ovate, becoming lanceolate, 4.5–7.5 cm long, 1.5–3 cm wide, greyish green. Adult leaves alternate, petioles 1–2.5 cm long; blade lanceolate, 4.5–11 cm long, 0.9–2.3 cm wide, base tapering to petiole, margin entire, apex pointed, concolorous, glossy, green, side-veins at an acute or wider angle to midrib, reticulation dense to very dense, intramarginal vein close to margin, oil glands mostly intersectional or few and obscure. Inflorescence axillary unbranched, peduncles 0.6–1.3 cm long, buds 7 per umbel, subsessile to shortly pedicellate (pedicels 0–0.4 cm long). Mature buds more or less cylindrical to fusiform with many shallow longitudinal ribs two of which may be more prominent (0.9–1.7 cm long, 0.4–0.7 cm wide), scar present, operculum bluntly conical (0.4–0.7 cm long), stamens inflexed, anthers oblong to wedge-shaped, versatile, dorsifixed, dehiscing by longitudinal slits, style long and straight, stigma blunt to tapered, locules 3 to 5, the placentae each with 4 vertical rows of ovules. Flowers creamy white. Fruit sessile to shortly pedicellate (pedicels 0–0.3 cm long), cupular to cylindrical, faintly ribbed or smooth, 0.8–1.2 cm long, 0.7–1 cm wide, disc descending vertically, valves 3 to 5, enclosed. Seeds brown, 1.5–3.5 mm long, flattened-ovoid, dorsal surface with conspicuous but shallow reticulum, slightly ridged ventrally and with a marginal flange around ca half of seed, hilum ventral/terminal. Cultivated seedlings (measured at node 10): cotyledons reniform; stems rounded or square in cross-section; leaves always petiolate, opposite for 2 to 4 nodes then alternate, lanceolate, 6–9.5 cm long, 1.3–3 cm wide, dull, green to grey-green.
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