Tree to 30 m tall. Forming a lignotuber.Soft fibrous rough bark over most of the trunk, rough bark orange-brown to red-brown to dark grey or black. Upper trunk and large branches with white smooth bark. Branchlets not glaucous, oil glands present in the pith.Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): stems rounded in cross-section, hairy; juvenile leaves opposite or alternate, petiolate, ovate to broadly lanceolate, 5.5–11 cm long, 2.5–5 cm wide, base rounded to truncate to tapering to the petiole, apex acute, dull blue-green to green, with stellate hairs.Adult leaves alternate petioles 1–2 cm long; blade narrowly lanceolate, 6–16 cm long, 1–2 cm wide, base tapering to petiole, discolorous, dull green to blue-green, side-veins at a wider angle than 45° to the midrib, reticulation dense, intramarginal vein present and very close to the margin, oil glands intersectional.Inflorescence axillary single, peduncles 1.8–2.5 cm long, buds 7 per umbel, sessile to shortly pedicellate, pedicels 0–0.1 cm long. Mature buds fusiform, (2.2–2.8 cm long, 1–1.4 cm wide), not glaucous, calyx fused to the corolla and evident as 4 small teeth at the apex of the bud, hypanthium longitudinally striated or ribbed, operculum conical, stamens irregularly flexed, anthers oblong, versatile, dorsifixed, dehiscing by longitudinal slits (non-confluent), style long, hooked or bent beneath the apex of the bud, stigma tapered, locules usually 3, the ovules usually arranged in 6 distinct vertical rows on the placentae. Flowers orange.Fruit sessile, urceolate, longitudinally ribbed, 3.5–5.8 cm long, 2.2–5 cm wide, not glaucous, disc vertically to obliquely descending, valves 3, enclosed.Seeds dull dark grey to black, ± flattened to obliquely pyramidal to ± cuboid, 4–7 mm long, ventral surfaced ribbed, dorsal surface smooth, hilum ventral.Cultivated seedlings (measured at node 10): cotyledons reniform to bilobed; stems round in cross-section, hairy, leaves petiolate, opposite, broadly lanceolate, 7–11 cm long, 2.5–3.5 cm wide, blue-green to green, apex acute, base rounded to tapering to the petiole, lamina hairy on both sides, margins sometimes appear toothed due to the hairs.
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