Tree to 70 m tall. Forming a lignotuber.Bark smooth, shedding in long ribbons, white and pale grey; sometimes with persistent slabs of rough grey bark at base of trunk. Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): stem rounded or square in cross section; juvenile leaves opposite and sessile for many pairs, ovate to lanceolate, 5–15 cm long, 1.4–6.5 cm wide, base rounded or stem clasping, glossy, green. Adult leaves alternate, petiole 1–2.7 cm long; blade narrowly lanceolate to lanceolate to falcate, 8.5–21 cm long, 1–3 cm wide, flat or undulate, base tapering to petiole, concolorous, glossy, green, side-veins greater than 45° to midrib, moderately to densely reticulate, intramarginal vein parallel to and just within margin, oil glands mostly island or sometimes intersectional also.Inflorescence axillary unbranched, peduncles 0.6–1.2 cm long, buds 7 per umbel, on pedicels to 0.5 cm long, rarely sessile. Mature buds ovoid to fusiform, 0.4–0.7 cm long, 0.3–0.5 cm wide, scar present, operculum conical to rounded, rarely beaked, stamens irregularly flexed, anthers cuboid to oblong, versatile, dorsifixed, dehiscing by longitudinal slits (non-confluent), style long, stigma blunt, locules 3 or 4, the placentae each with 4 vertical ovule rows. Flowers white. Fruit on pedicels to 0.4 cm long, rarely sessile, cup-shaped or hemispherical, 0.3–0.6 cm long, 0.4–0.9 cm wide, disc raised-convex, oblique or annular, valves 3 or 4, strongly exserted. Seeds brown or black, 1–2.5 mm long, ovoid or flattened-ovoid, often pointed at one end, usually lacunose, dorsal surface shallowly pitted or smooth, hilum ventral. Cultivated seedlings (measured at ca node 10): cotyledons bilobed; stems square in cross-section; leaves sessile, opposite for many nodes, ovate-lanceolate, 5–9 cm long, 1.5–2.5 cm wide, amplexicaul or base rounded, margin entire, apex pointed, discolorous, glossy, green above, paler beneath.
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