Mallee to 3 m tall, sometimes a shrub. Forming a lignotuber.Bark smooth throughout, pale grey to grey-brown over pink-orange.Branchlets sometimes glaucous, always square in cross-section and sometimes winged; lacking oil glands in the pith.Juvenile stems square in cross-section and sometimes winged, occasionally glaucous; juvenile leaves always petiolate, opposite for ca 10 nodes then alternate, orbicular to broadly ovate, 3–12 cm long, 2.5–11 cm wide, base truncate to rounded or tapering, apex usually rounded to emarginate, sometimes pointed, dull grey-green. Adult leaves alternate, petioles 1.3–3 cm long; blade lanceolate, 7.5–15 cm long, 1.5–4 cm wide, base tapering to petiole, margin entire, apex acute, concolorous, dull to slightly glossy, green to grey-green, side-veins greater than 45° to midrib, reticulation very dense, intramarginal vein fairly close to margin, oil glands scattered, irregular, intersectional. Inflorescence axillary unbranched, peduncles flattened, 0.5–1.5 cm long, buds 11 to 19 per umbel, sessile to shortly pedicellate (pedicels 0-0.2 cm long). Mature buds elongated ovoid (1–1.3 cm long, 0.5–0.6 cm wide), creamy white, scar present (outer operculum shed early), operculum smooth, conical to beaked (1 to 1.5 times length of hypanthium), hypanthium weakly angled rather than ribbed, stamens inflexed, anthers cuboid, versatile, sub-basifixed, dehiscing by longitudinal slits, style long and straight, stigma blunt to slightly rounded, locules (3)4, the placentae each with 4 vertical rows of ovules. Flowers creamy white. Fruit sessile or very shortly pedicellate (pedicel 0-0.2 cm long), truncate-globose to hemispherical, weakly angled/ribbed or smooth, 0.5–0.8 cm long, 0.7–1.2 cm wide, rim thick, disc usually descending, valves (3)4, exserted but fragile. Seeds grey-brown, 1–2.5 mm long, ovoid or flattened-ovoid, dorsal surface very shallowly reticulate, hilum ventral.Cultivated seedlings (measured at node 10): cotyledons Y-shaped (bisected); stems square in cross-section, glaucous or not; leaves subsessile and elliptical to oblong at lower nodes becoming shortly petiolate, ovate to orbicular, alternate after 8 to 12 nodes, 3–5 cm long, 2.4–3.5 cm wide, dull, grey-green.
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