Mallee to 3 m tall. Forming a lignotuber. Bark rough with partly shed greyish ribbons for basal 1 m of trunks, smooth above grey over pale coppery or yellowish-grey. Branchlets with oil glands in the pith. Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): not seen. Adult leaves alternate, petioles 0.7–1.7; blade linear to narrowly lanceolate, 6–9.5 cm long, 0.8–1.5 cm wide, base tapering to petiole, margin entire, apex pointed, concolorous, slightly glossy, green to olive green, side-veins at an acute or wider angle to midrib, reticulation moderate, intramarginal vein present, oil glands both island and intersectional. Inflorescence axillary unbranched, peduncles widening apically, 1–1.7 cm long, buds ?9 to 13 per umbel, pedicellate (pedicels 0.3–0.5 cm long). Mature buds long-fusiform (1.8–1.9 cm long, 0.3–0.4 cm wide), scar present, operculum horn-shaped, three times the length of the hypanthium and scarcely narrower than it at the join, few outer stamens erect, most stamens variably deflexed, anthers oblong, versatile, dorsifixed, dehiscing by longitudinal slits, style long and straight, stigma tapered to rounded, locules 3, the placentae each with 4 vertical rows of ovules. Flowers lemon. Fruit pedicellate (pedicels 0.1–0.3 cm long), cylindrical to barrel-shaped, 0.6–0.8 cm long, 0.5–0.7 cm wide, disc descending, valves 3, near rim level. Seeds straw-coloured, 0.8–1.5 mm long, sub-spherical, surface smooth, hilum ventral/terminal. Cultivated seedlings (measured at node 10): cotyledons Y-shaped (bisected); stems rounded or square in cross-section; leaves always petiolate, opposite for 2 or 3 nodes then alternate, lanceolate, 5–11.5 cm long, 1.2–2.5 cm wide, dull, grey-green becoming green and slightly glossy.
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