Mallee to 5 m tall. Forming a lignotuber. Bark smooth throughout, white to grey and coppery. Branchlets lacking oil glands in the pith. Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): stems rounded in cross-section; juvenile leaves opposite and subsessile at lowest nodes, then alternate and petiolate, narrowly elliptical to oblong, 2–7 cm long, 0.5–1 cm wide, dull, bluish grey to slightly glaucous. Adult leaves alternate, petioles 0.3–1 cm long; blade linear to narrowly lanceolate-elliptic, 4–9.5 cm long, 0.5–0.8 cm wide, base tapering to petiole, margin entire to distantly subcrenulate, apex finely pointed, concolorous, green, glossy, side-veins greater than 45° to midrib, reticulation dense, intramarginal vein present, oil glands intersectional. Inflorescence axillary unbranched, peduncles rounded to angular, 0.4–1 cm long, buds (?7)9 or 11 per umbel, pedicellate (pedicels 0.2–0.3 cm long). Mature buds ovoid to fusiform (0.5–0.7 cm long, 0.2–0.3 cm wide), scar present, operculum conical (0.3–0.4 cm long), stamens inflexed, anthers cuneate-cuboid, adnate to filament apex (rigidly basifixed), dehiscing by sub-terminal pores, a few of the innermost stamens imperfectly formed, style long and straight or slightly twisted apically, stigma tapered, locules 3, the placentae each with 4 vertical rows of ovules. Flowers creamy white. Fruit pedicellate (pedicels 0.1–0.3 cm long), small barrel-shaped to truncate-globose, 0.4–0.5 cm long, 0.3–0.4 cm wide, disc descending, valves 3, held near rim level. Seeds brown to grey-brown, 1–2 mm long, flattened-ovoid, dorsal surface often with longitudinal furrows otherwise smooth, hilum ventral. Cultivated seedlings (measured at node 10): cotyledons Y-shaped (bisected); stems rounded in cross-section, warty or smooth, often glaucous; leaves sessile to subsessile, opposite for 16 to 23+ nodes, then alternate, ovate-elliptic, 1.3–2.5 cm long, 0.5–1 cm wide, greyish green or slightly glaucous.
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