Mallee or rarely a small tree to 8 m tall. Forming a lignotuber.Bark smooth throughout, shiny, grey to coppery to olive-green.Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): stem square or rounded in cross-section; juvenile leaves petiolate, alternate, ovate to orbicular, 4–7 cm long, 4–7 cm wide, glossy green, base tapering to the petiole, apex emarginate, margin often with shallow crenulations.Adult leaves alternate, petiole 1.2–3 cm long; blade broadly lanceolate to elliptical to ovate, 6–11 cm long, 1.7–4(5) cm wide, apex acute, base tapering to petiole, margin often with shallow crenulations, concolorous, glossy green, moderately reticulate, intramarginal vein parallel to and well removed from the margin, oil glands numerous and island. Plants are frequently reproductive with a sub-adult crown of more elliptical rather than lanceolate leaves.Inflorescence axillary unbranched, peduncles 0.8–1.5 cm long, buds 9–18 per umbel, pedicellate (pedicels 0.3–0.5 cm long). Mature buds elongated ovoid to fusiform with operculum much longer than hypanthium (buds 1–1.3 cm long, 0.3–0.4 cm wide), yellow or creamy, smooth, scar present, operculum horn-shaped (0.8–1.1 cm long), stamens erect, anthers cuboid to oblong, versatile, dorsifixed, dehiscing by longitudinal slits (non-confluent), style long, stigma tapered, locules 3 or 4, the placentae each with 6–8 vertical ovule rows. Flowers white.Fruit pedicellate (pedicels 0.1–0.4 cm long), hemispherical, 0.3 cm long, 0.4–0.8 cm wide, disc raised, raised disc convex to concave, sometimes oblique or vertical, valves 3 or 4, strongly exserted.Seeds dark brown, 0.8–1 mm long, pyramidal or ± cuboid, dorsal surface smooth, hilum terminal. Cultivated seedlings (measured at ca node 10): cotyledons bilobed; stems square in cross-section with small wings on the edges; leaves always petiolate, opposite for the first 3 to 5 nodes then becoming alternate, ovate, 5–8 cm long, 4–7 cm wide, base tapering to rounded, apex bluntly pointed to rounded, sometimes shallowly emarginate, green.
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