Mallee to 4 m tall. Forming a lignotuber. Bark smooth throughout shedding in ribbons, grey over whitish to pale brown or pink. Branchlets lacking oil glands in the pith. Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): stems rounded in cross-section; juvenile leaves always shortly petiolate, opposite for very few nodes then alternate, lower leaves obcordate or obovate, later becoming elliptical to ovate, 3–5.5 cm long, 1.5–3 cm wide, margin subcrenulate to entire, apex emarginate to rounded or sometimes broadly acute, dull, grey-green. Adult leaves alternate, petioles 0.7–2.2 cm long; blade usually lanceolate, sometimes almost elliptical, (5)6.5–10.5(11.7) cm long, 0.8–2 cm wide, base tapering to petiole, margin entire, apex pointed, concolorous, glossy, dark green, side-veins at an acute or wider angle to midrib, reticulation dense, intramarginal vein remote from margin, oil glands mostly intersectional. Inflorescence axillary unbranched, peduncles 0.3–1 cm long (to 2 cm long at Peak Charles); buds ?11 or 13, sessile. Mature buds squatly ovoid (0.6–0.8 cm long, 0.4–0.5 cm wide), scar present, operculum broadly conical, stamens inflexed, anthers small, reniform to ± globoid, versatile, dorsifixed, dehiscing by short oblique slits, style long and straight, stigma blunt to rounded, locules 3 or 4, the placentae each with 4 vertical rows of ovules. Flowers creamy white. Fruit sessile, crowded, flattened and truncate-globose to hemispherical, 0.4–0.7 cm long, 0.6–1.1 cm wide, disc level, valves 3 or 4, at rim level or slightly exserted. Seeds dark brown to grey-brown, 1–2.2 mm long, ovoid or flattened-ovoid, dorsal surface smooth, hilum ventral. Cultivated seedlings (measured at ca node 10): cotyledons Y-shaped (bisected); stems rounded in cross-section, smooth to slightly warty; leaves virtually sessile to shortly petiolate, opposite for 5–8 nodes then becoming alternate, orbicular to obovate or obcordate, 1.5–2.5 cm long, 1–2.5 cm wide, base rounded to tapering, margin subcrenulate or entire, apex rounded to truncate or emarginate, dull, greyish green contrasting with the very green new tip growth.
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