Mallee to 5 m tall. Forming a lignotuber. Bark smooth throughout or with a few persistent strips at base of stems; smooth bark shedding in ribbons, grey, pinkish grey and yellow to brown. Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): stem square in cross section and often prominently winged, densely warty on lower stems; juvenile leaves opposite, sessile to subsessile and elliptic for ca 4 nodes then alternate, petiolate, lanceolate to falcate, 9–14 cm long, 2–5.5 cm wide, glossy, green. Adult leaves alternate, petiole 1–2.3 cm long; blade broadly falcate to lanceolate, 8–16.5 cm long, 1.8–5 cm wide, base oblique or tapering to petiole, concolorous, glossy, green, side-veins acute, reticulation invisible, intramarginal vein well removed from margin, oil glands very irregular, island. Inflorescence axillary unbranched, peduncles 0.6–1.2 cm long, buds 7 per umbel, pedicels 0.1–0.4 cm long. Mature buds obovoid to oblong, 0.7–0.9 cm long, 0.4–0.5 cm wide, green to yellow, smooth or warty, angled longitudinally, scar absent, operculum conical to rounded to beaked, stamens irregularly flexed, anthers reniform to cordate, versatile, dorsifixed, dehiscing by confluent slits, style long, stigma tapered, locules 3 or 4, the placentae each with 2 vertical ovule rows. Flowers white. Fruit pedicellate (pedicels 0.1–0.4 cm long), cup-shaped or barrel-shaped, 0.7–1 cm long, 0.8–1.2 cm wide, disc descending, valves 3 or 4, near rim level or enclosed. Seeds dark brown, 1.5–3 mm long, pyramidal or obliquely pyramidal, dorsal surface smooth, hilum terminal. Cultivated seedlings (measured at ca node 10): cotyledons reniform; stems rounded to square in cross-section, scabrid on lower part; leaves sessile to subsessile, opposite for 4 pairs then alternate, ovate-lanceolate, 10–17 cm long, 3–5.5 cm wide, base truncate to rounded then tapering, margin entire, apex pointed, concolorous, glossy, green, thick. Lowest leaves scabrid on petiole and midrib underneath.
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