Tree to 10 m tall, or a shorter mallee. Forming a lignotuber Bark rough over most of the trunk, hard fibrous, sometimes extending to the larger branches, dark grey to black; smooth bark on upper trunk and larger branches, white to grey to creamy brown to pale pink. Branchlets usually glaucous; lacking oil glands in the pith. Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): stem square in cross-section, glaucous to non-glaucous; juvenile leaves opposite becoming alternate further up the stem, sessile, ovate, base decurrent on stem, margin entire, apex pointed, 5.5–12 cm long, 2–4.5 cm wide, dull grey-green to glaucous. Adult leaves alternate, petiole (1)1.5–2.5 cm long; blade lanceolate, sometimes falcate, 5 –13 cm long, (0.8)1–2.2(2.5) cm wide, base tapering to petiole, concolorous, dull, blue-green to green, side-veins usually at an acute angle to midrib, rarely wider, moderately to densely reticulate, intramarginal vein parallel to and just within margin, oil glands mostly intersectional. Inflorescence axillary unbranched, peduncles 0.5–1.2 cm long, erect to pendulous; buds usually more than 7, rarely 7, pedicellate, pedicels 0.4–0.8 cm long. Mature buds ± ovoid to oblong or obovoid (1.4–2 cm long, 0.5–0.6 cm wide), usually glaucous, rarely non-glaucous, scar present, operculum beaked to horn-shaped (0.9–1.6 cm long), stamens irregularly flexed, anthers versatile, basifixed, globoid, dehiscing by slits, style long, stigma tapered, locules 3 or 4, the placentae each with 4 vertical ovule rows. Flowers pale yellow. Fruit erect to pendulous, pedicellate, pedicels 0.4–0.7 cm long, urn-shaped to rarely barrel-shaped, usually glaucous but glaucescence weathering with age, 0.6–1 cm long, 0.5–0.8 cm wide, disc descending, valves 3 or 4, valve tips strongly exserted due to fragile style remnants. Seeds brown to grey, 1.5–2 mm long, ovoid or flattened-ovoid, rarely pointed at one end, occasionally with shallow longitudinal furrows on otherwise smooth dorsal surface, hilum ventral. Cultivated seedlings (measured at node 10): cotyledons Y-shaped (bisected); stems square in cross-section and prominently winged due to decurrent leaf bases; leaves opposite, sessile, linear for the first few nodes then ovate to elliptical, dull grey-green, 2–4 cm long, 1–2 cm wide, leaf base decurrent on stem.
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