Mallee to 6 m tall. Forming a lignotuber. Bark smooth throughout, grey over cream to brown to salmon-pink to coppery (rarely yellow). Branchlets often slightly glaucous; lacking oil glands in the pith. Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): stem square to rounded in cross-section, glaucous; juvenile leaves opposite becoming alternate further up the stem, sessile to shortly petiolate, ovate to lanceolate, the bases of lower leaves decurrent on stem, becoming rounded to tapering further up the stem, margin entire, apex pointed, 3.5–8 cm long, 1.8–4 cm wide, glaucous. Adult leaves alternate, petiole 1–2 cm long; blade lanceolate, 5–11(13.5) cm long, (0.7)1–2 cm wide, base tapering to petiole, concolorous, young leaves dull blue-green to rarely slightly glaucous, becoming glossy to slightly glossy green with age, side-veins at an acute or wider angle to midrib, densely reticulate, sometimes the reticulation obscure, intramarginal vein parallel to and just within margin, oil glands numerous and mostly intersectional. Inflorescence axillary unbranched, peduncles 0.5–1.3 cm long, buds usually 7, rarely 9, pedicellate, pedicels 0.3–0.6 cm long. Mature buds ± ovoid (1.1–1.7 cm long, 0.3–0.6 cm wide), glaucous, scar present, operculum beaked to horn-shaped (0.7–1.2 cm long), stamens inflexed, anthers versatile, basifixed, globoid, dehiscing by broad slits, style long, stigma tapered, locules 3 or 4, the placentae each with 4 vertical ovule rows. Flowers pale yellow to white. Fruit pedicellate, pedicels 0.2–0.5 cm long, barrel-shaped to truncate-globose, rarely urn-shaped, sometimes glaucous, 0.5–1 cm long, 0.5–0.8 cm wide, disc descending, valves 3 or 4, valve tips strongly exserted due to fragile style remnants. Seeds glossy brown to grey, 1.2–2 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 to lanceolate, dull grey-green to sometimes slightly glaucous on new growth, 1.2–6.7 cm long, 0.3–1.3(1.7) cm wide, leaf base decurrent on stem.
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