Mallee to 5 m tall. Forming a lignotuber. Bark rough, fibrous, loose, grey-brown, for ca 1 m of trunks, becoming curly and flaky then smooth whitish grey to pale orange or pinkish grey. Branchlets with oil glands in the pith. Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm):stems rounded in cross-section; leaves always petiolate, alternate, elliptical to ovate, 5–8.5 cm long, 2.5–4 cm wide, dull, green. Adult leaves alternate, petioles 1–2 cm long; blade lanceolate, 7–10.5 cm long, 1.5–3 cm wide, base tapering to petiole, margin entire, apex pointed, concolorous, glossy, green, side-veins at an acute or wider angle to midrib, reticulation dense, intramarginal vein remote from margin, oil glands intersectional. Inflorescence axillary unbranched, peduncles flattened, widening apically, 0.3–1 cm long, buds 7, 9 or 11 per umbel, pedicellate (pedicels 0.3 cm long). Mature buds obovoid to ovoid (0.7–0.9 cm long, 0.5 cm wide), scar present, operculum rounded, stamens inflexed, anthers oblong, versatile, dorsifixed, dehiscing by longitudinal slits, style long and straight, stigma blunt, locules (3)4, the placentae each with 4 vertical rows of ovules. Flowers white. Fruit pedicellate (pedicels 0.2–0.3 cm long), cupular to barrel-shaped, 0.5–0.6 cm long, 0.6–0.7 cm wide, disc descending, valves (3)4, near rim level. Seeds brown, 1–2.5 mm long, flattened-ovoid, dorsal surface shallowly reticulate, a narrow encircling marginal flange often present, hilum ventral. Cultivated seedlings (measured at node 10): cotyledons Y-shaped (bisected); stems square to rounded in cross-section; leaves always petiolate, opposite for 4 to 6 nodes then alternate, deltoid or broadly ovate, 3.5–8 cm long, 3–6.5 cm wide, green, dull at lower nodes but soon becoming glossy.
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