Tree to 12 m tall. Forming a lignotuber. Bark smooth mainly white with patches of cream, grey or orange; branchlets glaucous. Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): stem rounded in cross-section, usually glaucous; juvenile leaves usually petiolate, opposite for 5 or 6 nodes then alternate, petiolate, ovate to lanceolate, 6.5–11 cm long, 2.2–4 cm wide, green to blue-green. Adult leaves alternate, petiole 0.5–2.5 cm long; blade narrowly lanceolate to lanceolate to falcate, 7–18 cm long, 0.7–3 cm wide, base tapering to petiole, concolorous, glossy, green, parallel-veined, sparsely reticulate, intramarginal vein parallel to and just within margin or well removed from it, oil glands island or obscure. Inflorescence axillary unbranched, peduncles 0.3–1.2 cm long, buds 9 to ?15 per umbel, sessile or on pedicels to 0.3 cm long. Mature buds obovoid to globular to pyriform, 0.6–0.8 cm long, 0.4–0.5 cm wide, green and red, or glaucous, scar absent, operculum rounded to conical, stamens inflexed or irregularly flexed, anthers reniform to cordate, versatile, dorsifixed, dehiscing by confluent slits, style long, stigma blunt or tapered, locules 3 or 4, the placentae each with 2 vertical ovule rows. Flowers white. Fruit sessile or on pedicels to 0.3 cm long, cup-shaped, obconical or barrel-shaped, 0.7–1.1 cm long, 0.8–1.1 cm wide, glaucous, or non-glaucous, disc level, valves 3 or 4, enclosed. Seeds dark brown, 1.5–2.2 mm long, pyramidal or obliquely pyramidal, dorsal surface smooth, hilum terminal. Cultivated seedlings (measured at ca node 10): cotyledons reniform; stems rounded in cross-section, glaucous; leaves sessile to shortly petiolate, elliptic and opposite for 5 or 6 pairs then alternate, ovate-lanceolate, 7.5–9.5 cm long, 2.5–4.5 cm wide, base tapering, margin entire, apex pointed, dull, blue-grey to grey-green.
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