Small tree with a short trunk,or mallee, to 8 m tall. Forming a lignotuber.Bark.rough to small branches, box-type or sometimes tessellated, light grey-brown to grey-white.Branchlets lack oil glands in the pith; non-glaucous.Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): stems rounded in cross-section; juvenile leaves always petiolate, alternate, broadly lanceolate, to 13 cm long, to 3.5 cm wide, dull, light green. Adult leaves alternate, petioles 0.5–2 cm long; blade lanceolate to falcate or ± oblong, (5.3)6–15.5 cm long, 0.5–2 cm wide, base tapering to petiole, apex rounded or pointed, margin entire, concolorous, dull, light green to bluish green, side-veins usually at 45° or more to midrib, reticulation very dense, intramarginal vein present close to margin, oil glands scattered, intersectional and island.Inflorescence terminal compound, sometimes a few single umbels in the axils below or even a few compound axillary also, peduncles angular, 0.2–0.8 cm long, buds 7 per umbel, sessile or rarely subsessile (pedicel never > 0.1 cm). Mature buds ovoid to obovoid, sometimes basally slightly angled, 0.4–0.5 cm long, 0.3–0.4 cm wide, scar present (outer operculum shed early), operculum rounded, sometimes apiculate, to conical, stamens irregularly flexed, all fertile, anthers adnate, basifixed, cuboid to globoid, dehiscing by lateral slits, style long, straight, stigma blunt, locules 3 or 4(5), the placentae each with 4 vertical ovule rows. Flowers white.Fruit sessile to subsessile, obconical, 0.2–0.4 cm long, 0.3–0.5 cm wide, rim thin and sometimes split, disc level or descending obliquely, valves 3 or 4(5), at rim level or exserted.Seeds dark brown to blackish brown, 1–2.3 mm long, flattened-ovoid, sometimes pointed at one end, dorsal surface shallowly reticulate, hilum ventral. Cultivated seedlings (measured at ca node 10): cotyledons reniform; stems rounded in cross-section; leaves very shortly petiolate (petioles 0.1–0.6 cm), opposite for 6–10 nodes then becoming alternate, linear, 6.5–10.5(14.5) cm long, 0.3–0.6(1) cm long, base tapering, apex pointed, dull, green, concolorous.
Home