Mallee to 5 m tall. Forming a lignotuber.Bark rough for basal 0.5–3 m of stems, matted and fibrous to thick, loose and flaky, yellow-brown weathering grey, smooth above coppery-orange to salmon pink.Branchlets sometimes glaucous; lacking oil glands in the pith. Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): stems rounded in cross-section, glaucous or non-glaucous, slightly warty to smooth; juvenile leaves always petiolate, alternate, elliptical to ovate to lanceolate, 2.5–7 cm long, 1–3.3 cm wide, dull, grey-green. Adult leaves alternate, petioles 0.8–2.5 cm long; blade lanceolate to elliptical, at times narrowly so, 3.8–9.5 cm long, 0.8–2.3 cm wide, base tapering to petiole, margin entire, apex rounded to pointed, concolorous, dull, blue-grey to light green, side-veins greater than 45° to midrib, reticulation dense to very dense, intramarginal vein close to margin, oil glands intersectional. New growth in crown often with glaucous tinge but soon lost as leaves mature. Inflorescence axillary unbranched, peduncles 1–3 cm long, buds 7(11) per umbel, pedicels 0.4-0.9 cm long. Mature buds globose (0.5–0.7 cm long, 0.5–0.6 cm wide), scar present, operculum rounded and usually apiculate (0.3 cm long), stamens oblique, anthers cuboid, versatile, ± basifixed, dehiscing by longitudinal slits, style long and straight, stigma blunt, locules 4(5), the placentae each with 4 vertical rows of ovules with a central gap. Flowers not seen. Fruit pedicellate (pedicels 0.4–0.9 cm long), shallowly and broadly obconical to hemispherical, 0.3–0.7 cm long, 0.7–1.4 cm wide, disc ascending steeply, valves 4(5), prominently exserted. Seeds straw-coloured to brown, 3–5 mm long, obliquely elongated with a small tongue-like flange, obscurely ribbed ventrally, dorsal surface smooth, hilum terminal.Cultivated seedlings (measured at node 10): cotyledons Y-shaped (bisected); stems rounded in cross-section, warty, sometimes slightly glaucous; leaves always petiolate, opposite for 7 to 10 nodes then alternate, orbicular to broadly elliptical or ovate, 3–4.5 cm long, 1.3–4 cm wide, dull, greyish green or slightly glaucous.
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