Mallee to 6 m tall, or small tree. Forming a lignotuber. Bark smooth throughout but with conspicuous ribbons of shed bark, light grey, dark grey and pale pinkish brown. Branchlets with sparsely glandular pith. Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): from Brooker & Hopper (1991): juvenile leaves opposite for 2 or 3 of pairs then alternate, ovate to lanceolate to 11 cm long, to 4 cm wide, glossy green, glabrous. Adult leaves alternate, petioles 0.8–1.8 cm long, held erect; blade linear to narrowly lanceolate, 6.5–12.5 cm long, 0.6–1.6 cm wide, base tapering to petiole, margin entire, apex pointed, concolorous, dull, blue-green but maturing glossy, green, side-veins acute, reticulation sparse to moderate, intramarginal vein more or less close to margin, oil glands numerous and mostly island. Inflorescence axillary unbranched, peduncles widening apically, 0.8–2 cm long, buds ?11 per umbel, pedicellate (pedicels 0.2–0.4 cm long). Mature buds long-fusiform (2–3 cm long, 0.35–0.4 cm wide), scar present, operculum horn-shaped, twice to three times the length of the hypanthium and equal to it in width at the join, few outer stamens erect, most stamens variably deflexed, anthers oblong, versatile, dorsifixed, dehiscing by longitudinal slits, style long and straight, stigma rounded to tapered, locules 3, the placentae each with 4 vertical rows of ovules. Flowers pale yellow. Fruit pedicellate (pedicels 0.3 cm long), cylindrical to barrel-shaped or obconical, 0.8–1.1 cm long, 0.5–0.7 cm wide, disc descending vertically, valves 3, near rim level. Seeds pale brown to straw-coloured, 0.8–1.8 mm long, sub-spherical, surface smooth, hilum ventral/terminal. Cultivated seedlings (measured at ca node 10): cotyledons Y-shaped (bisected); stems rounded in cross-section; leaves always petiolate, opposite for 2 to 4 nodes then alternate, lanceolate, 7–11 cm long, 1–2 cm wide, dull to slightly glossy, mid-green, margin slightly scabrid.
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