Tree to 18 m tall, sometimes widely spreading. Forming a lignotuber.Bark rough to small branches, soft and finely fibrous to stringy, grey or grey-brown.Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): stem rounded in cross-section; juvenile leaves sessile and opposite for the first few nodes with the lamina held horizontally, then becoming alternate and petiolate (petioles to ca 1 cm long) with lamina held vertically, broadly elliptical to ovate to broadly lanceolate, 5–15 cm long, 3–7 cm wide, base never amplexicaul, but shallowly lobed to rounded to truncate or tapering, discolorous becoming concolorous green, dull.Adult leaves coarsely textured, alternate, petiole 1–2.2 cm long; blade lanceolate to falcate, 6–16 cm long, 1–4 cm wide, base tapering to petiole, margin entire, apex pointed, concolorous, slightly glossy or dull, green, side-veins at ca 40° to 50° to midrib, moderately to very densely reticulate or reticulation obscure because of leaf thickness, intramarginal vein remote from margin, oil glands island, intersectional or obscure.Inflorescence axillary unbranched or sometimes aggregated near ends of branchlets and thus appearing like a terminal panicle, peduncles 0.8–1.5 cm long, buds 7 to ?15 per umbel, pedicels 0.3–0.6 cm long. Mature buds ovoid, 0.4–0.6 cm long, 0.3–0.4 cm wide, green to yellow, scar absent, the single operculum shed at flowering, operculum conical to beaked, stamens irregularly flexed, anthers reniform to cordate, versatile, dorsifixed, dehiscing by confluent slits, style long, stigma tapered, locules 4 or 5, the placentae each with 2 vertical ovule rows; flowers white.Fruit pedicellate (pedicels 0.2–0.7 cm long), truncate-globose to hemispherical, 0.3–0.7 cm long, 0.5–0.9 cm wide, always flat-topped and wider than long, disc flat and placed at or just below rim level, valves 4 or 5, at disc level or slightly exserted beyond this.Seeds brown, 1–2 mm long, pyramidal or obliquely pyramidal, dorsal surface usually smooth, hilum terminal. Cultivated seedlings (measured at ca node 10): cotyledons reniform; stems rounded in cross-section; leaves opposite for ca 10 nodes then alternate, sessile or just starting to develop a petiole at node 10, ovate, 8–9 cm long, 3–4 cm wide, base amplexicaul, discolorous, green.
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