Mallee to 4 m tall, with ± erect stems and foliage to ground level. Forming a lignotuber. Bark usually wholly smooth, grey, grey-brown, rusty brown and greenish grey, ribbons sometimes present, rarely with a persistent fibrous thin grey-brown basal stocking for ca 0.5 m of trunks on older plants. Branchlets lacking oil glands in the pith. Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): stems rounded in cross-section; juvenile leaves opposite for 1 or 2 nodes then becoming alternate but may revert to opposite for a few nodes, oblong, 6.5–9.5 cm long, 1.2–1.5 cm wide, apex rounded-apiculate to acute, dull, blue-green. Adult leaves held erect, alternate, petioles 0.4–0.8(1.1) cm long; blade narrowly oblong-elliptic, 4–8.5 cm long, 0.8–1.5 cm wide, base tapering to petiole, margin entire, apex rounded and apiculate to pointed, concolorous, dull bluish green at first but maturing glossy green inside crown, side-veins greater than 45° to midrib, reticulation moderate to dense, intramarginal vein close to or remote from margin, oil glands numerous, mostly intersectional, ± round. Inflorescence axillary, single, peduncles 0.2–0.5 cm long, buds 7, 9 or 11, shortly pedicellate (pedicels 0.1–0.3 cm long). Mature buds ovoid (egg-in-eggcup) with hypanthium widest below join with operculum, 0.6 cm long, 0.45–0.5 cm wide, scar present, operculum usually rounded, stamens inflexed, anthers oblong to reniform, versatile, dorsifixed, dehiscing by short lateral slits, style long, straight, stigma blunt to rounded, locules 3, the placentae each with 4 vertical rows of ovules. Flowers white. Fruit sessile or shortly pedicellate (0–0.2 cm long), flattened-globose to obconical and swollen, 0.4–0.5 cm wide, 0.6–0.8 cm wide, disc level, valves 3, near rim level. Seeds brown, 1.0–2.5 mm long, flattened-ovoid, dorsal surface ± smooth, sometimes furrowed, hilum ventral. Cultivated seedlings (measured at ca node 10): cotyledons Y-shaped (bisected); stems rounded in cross-section, slightly warty or smooth; leaves linear and sessile to sub-sessile for ca 3 nodes, opposite until ca node 5 or 6 then alternate, becoming shortly petiolate, lanceolate-elliptic, 3.5–6.5 cm long, 0.7–1.8 cm wide, dull grey-green.
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