Mallee to 3 m tall. Forming a lignotuber. Bark smooth throughout, dark and silvery grey over pink. Branchlets have oil glands in the pith. Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): not seen. Adult leaves held erect, alternate, petioles 0.4–1 cm long; blade linear, 5.5–11 cm long, 0.5–1 cm wide, base tapering to petiole, margin entire, apex acute, concolorous, dull or becoming slightly glossy with age, green, side-veins at an acute or wider angle to midrib or obscure, reticulation obscure or moderate to dense, intramarginal vein present, oil glands irregular, island and intersectional. Inflorescence axillary unbranched, peduncles widening apically, 0.4–1.2 cm long, buds 9 or 11, shortly pedicellate (pedicels 0–0.3 cm long). Mature buds fusiform (0.7–1 cm long, 0.2–0.35 cm wide), scar present, operculum conical and attenuate, about twice the length of the hypanthium and slightly narrower than it at the join, stamens inflexed, anthers oblong, versatile, dorsifixed, dehiscing by longitudinal slits, style long and straight, stigma tapered, locules 3, the placentae each with 4 vertical rows of ovules. Flowers white. Fruit sessile to shortly pedicellate (pedicels 0–0.1 cm long), shortly barrel-shaped, 0.4–0.7 cm long, 0.4–0.5 cm wide, disc descending vertically, valves 3, near rim level. Seeds pale brown to straw-coloured, 0.8–1.5 mm long, usually cuboid, surface smooth, hilum ventral/terminal. Cultivated seedlings (measured at node 10): cotyledons Y-shaped (bisected); stems square to rounded in cross-section; leaves shortly petiolate, opposite for ca 3–5 nodes then alternate, narrowly lanceolate to linear, 6–8.5 cm long, 0.8–1.3 cm wide, green.
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