Mallee to 6 m or tree to 10 m tall. Forming a lignotuber. Bark rough over part or all of trunk, thin, shaggy and scaly or flat with shallow fissures, blackish and orange-brown, smooth above, grey to pale grey and orange to salmon-pink. Branchlets with oil glands in the pith. Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): stems square in cross-section, slightly glaucous; leaves always petiolate but shortly so, opposite for ca 3 nodes then alternate, lanceolate, 6.5–9 cm long, 0.9–2 cm wide, dull, blue-grey or slightly glaucous. Adult leaves alternate, petioles 0.8–1.5 cm long; blade linear to narrowly lanceolate, 6.5–10.5 cm long, 0.5–1(1.4) cm wide, base tapering to petiole, margin entire, apex finely pointed (drip tip), concolorous, glossy, green, side-veins at an acute or wider angle to midrib and densely reticulate or side-veins and reticulation obscured by numerous island oil glands, intramarginal vein close to margin. Inflorescence axillary unbranched, peduncles 0.5–1.5 cm long, buds ? to 11 per umbel, pedicellate (pedicels 0.2–0.4 cm long). Mature buds cylindrical (0.6–0.9 cm long, 0.3–0.4 cm wide), scar present, operculum rounded, sometimes apiculate, to broadly conical (0.2–0.4 cm long), stamens inflexed, anthers oblong to wedge-shaped, versatile, dorsifixed, dehiscing by longitudinal slits, style long and straight, stigma blunt to slightly rounded, locules 3, the placentae each with 4 vertical rows of ovules. Flowers white. Fruit pedicellate (pedicels 0.2–0.4 cm long), cylindrical to barrel-shaped, 0.5–0.8 cm long, 0.4–0.6 cm wide, disc descending vertically, valves 3, near rim level or enclosed. Seeds brown or blackish, 1–2.3 mm long, ovoid or flattened-ovoid, dorsal surface pitted, margin ragged, hilum ventral. Cultivated seedlings (measured at ca node 10): cotyledons reniform; stems square in cross-section; leaves always petiolate, opposite for 5 or 6 nodes then becoming alternate, ovate to lanceolate, 3.5–6.5 cm long, 1.5–2.5 cm wide, dull, bluish green to slightly glaucous.
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