Mallee to 6 m tall. Forming a lignotuber.Bark rough for lower half of trunk, grey to brown, loose and flaky, smooth above light grey over pinkish grey to coppery cream.Branchlets with oil glands in the pith.Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): stems square to rounded in cross-section, slightly glaucous; juvenile leaves always petiolate, opposite for ca 3 nodes then alternate, orbicular at lowest nodes becoming ovate, 3–5.5 cm long, 2.5–4.5 cm wide, base rounded to tapering, slightly glaucous to blue-grey. Adult leaves alternate, petioles 1–2.5 cm long; blade lanceolate, 7.5–12(13.5) cm long, (1)1.5–2.5(3.5) cm wide, base tapering to petiole, margin entire, apex pointed, dull blue-grey to grey-green or slightly glaucous, side-veins at an acute or wider angle to midrib, reticulation dense to very dense, intramarginal vein present, oil glands intersectional. Inflorescence axillary unbranched, peduncles 0.5–2 cm long, buds (?7)9 to 19 per umbel, pedicellate, pedicels 0.2–0.6 cm long. Mature buds more or less obovoid (0.8–1.4 cm long, 0.5–0.9 cm wide), glaucous or non-glaucous, scar present, operculum rounded to conical (0.25–0.6 cm long), radially striate, stamens inflexed, anthers cuboid to wedge-shaped, versatile, sub-dorsifixed, dehiscing by longitudinal slits, style long and straight, stigma more or less blunt, locules 4–6, the placentae each with 4 vertical rows of ovules. Flowers creamy white. Fruit pedicellate, pedicels 0.2–0.5 cm long, obconical to cylindrical, 0.7–1.2 cm long, 0.7–1.1 cm wide, glaucous or non-glaucous, disc descending, valves 4–6, rim level or scarcely exserted. Seeds red-brown and glossy, 1.5–3.5 mm long, flattened-ovoid and sometimes slightly angular in outline, dorsal surface shallowly reticulate, hilum ventral.Cultivated seedlings (measured at ca node 10): cotyledons reniform; stems square in cross-section, slightly glaucous or not glaucous; leaves always petiolate, opposite for 3 to 5 nodes then alternate, ovate, 3.5–7.5 cm long, 2.5–4 cm wide, glaucous weathering to grey-green.
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