Tree to 20 m tall. Forming a lignotuber.Bark rough usually to small branches, thick, fibrous, furrowed longitudinally, dark-grey; branches Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): stem rounded or square in cross-section, warty or smooth; juvenile leaves opposite and sessile to shortly petiolate for 6 to 12 nodes then becoming alternate, elliptical to lanceolate, 4–10.5 cm long, 1.8–3.5 cm wide, base usually tapering to petiole, blue-green and crenulate at first but soon green and with entire margin.Adult leaves alternate, petiole 1–3.5 cm long; blade lanceolate to falcate, 9–24.5 cm long, 1.3–4 cm wide, base tapering to petiole, concolorous, glossy, green, side-veins usually greater than 45° to midrib, moderately to densely reticulate, intramarginal vein parallel to and well removed from margin, oil glands mostly island.Inflorescence axillary unbranched, peduncles 0.2–0.9 cm long, buds 7 per umbel, pedicels 0.2–0.4 cm long. Mature buds ovoid to fusiform, 0.4–0.6 cm long, 0.3–0.4 cm wide, green, scar present, operculum conical, stamens inflexed, anthers cuboid to oblong, versatile, dorsifixed, dehiscing by longitudinal slits (non-confluent), style long, stigma blunt, locules 3 or 4, the placentae each with 4 vertical ovule rows. Flowers white.Fruit pedicellate (pedicels 0.1–0.4 cm long), hemispherical or cup-shaped, 0.3–0.4 cm long, 0.4–0.6 cm wide, disc level, or disc raised-convex, annular or oblique, valves 3 or 4, near rim level or slightly exserted.Seeds dark brown to black or grey, 1.2–2 mm long, ovoid or flattened-ovoid, often pointed at one end, surface more or less smooth, dorsal surface usually lacunose, hilum ventral. Cultivated seedlings (measured at ca node 10): cotyledons bilobed to oblong; stems rounded or square in cross-section, smooth or slightly warty; leaves sessile, opposite and elliptic for ca 7 to 10 nodes, becoming alternate, shortly petiolate, ovate, 4–7 cm long, 1.2–3.2 cm wide, base rounded to tapering, margin entire or subcrenulate, apex rounded to pointed, dull, green.
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