Tree or mallee to 8 m tall. Forming a lignotuber.Bark rough tight wavy box-type to the smallest branches, dark grey to grey-brown to whitish brown.Branchlets lack oil glands in the pith; non-glaucous.Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): not seen (by inference from the seedlings: stems square in cross-section, smooth, non-glaucous; leaves always petiolate, alternate, ovate to lanceolate, base rounded to tapering, green.) Adult leaves alternate, petioles 0.8–2.5 cm long; blade lanceolate to falcate, 7–25 cm long, 1–3.5 cm wide, base tapering to petiole, margin entire, apex pointed, concolorous, dull, light green to green, side-veins acute to greater than 45° to midrib, reticulation dense to very dense, intramarginal vein present, oil glands apparently absent.Inflorescence terminal compound and sometimes compound in upper leaf axils, peduncles slender, 0.3–2.3 cm long, buds 3 or 7 per umbel, pedicels 0.2–0.9 cm long). Mature buds obovoid to pyriform, 0.7–0.8 cm long, 0.4 cm wide, scar present (outer operculum shed early), operculum conical, stamens irregularly flexed or mostly inflexed with very few irregularly disposed, all fertile, anthers ± adnate, basifixed, cuboid to globoid, dehiscing by lateral slits, style long and straight, stigma blunt, locules 4, the placentae each with 4 vertical ovule rows. Flowers not seen.Fruit pedicellate (pedicels 0.1–1.4 cm long), obconical tending to cylindrical to ± barrel-shaped or cupular, 0.5–1.1 cm long, 0.5–0.9 cm wide, usually longer than wide, disc descending usually only a short way to the ovary roof, or sometimes level, valves 4, at rim level.Seeds dark brown to black, 1.3–3 mm long, flattened-ovoid, dorsal surface shallowly reticulate, hilum ventral. Cultivated seedlings (measured at ca node 10): cotyledons large, reniform; stems square in cross-section; leaves always petiolate (petioles 0.5–1 cm), opposite for 5–10 nodes then becoming alternate, lanceolate, 4.5–11.2 cm long,1.4–2.8 cm wide, base tapering, apex pointed, dull, concolorous, green to grey-green (non-glaucous).
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