Mallee to 7 m tall. Forming a lignotuber.Bark smooth throughout, creamy brown, grey and pale silver grey. Branchlets lacking oil glands in the pith. Juvenile stems rounded in cross-section; juvenile leaves always petiolate, opposite for lowest node only then alternate, elliptic lower down then ovate higher up stem, no measurements available, green to grey-green, dull. Adult leaves alternate, petiole 1–1.8 cm long; blade lanceolate to falcate, 5.5–12 cm long, 0.8–2 cm wide, base tapering to petiole, margin entire, apex pointed, concolorous, green or slightly grey-green, usually glossy but sometimes only weakly so, side-veins about 45° to midrib, reticulation dense, intramarginal vein close to margin, oil glands absent or obscure. Inflorescence axillary unbranched, peduncles erect to spreading, 0.7–1.6 cm long, buds 7 to 15, pedicellate (pedicels 0.1–0.6 cm long). Mature buds ovoid but slightly constricted at join with hypanthium (1–1.5(1.7) cm long, 0.4–0.7 cm wide), hypanthium ribbed or virtually smooth, scar present (outer operculum shed early), operculum conical and smooth, stamens inflexed, anthers cuboid, versatile, sub-basifixed, dehiscing by longitudinal slits, style long and straight, stigma more or less blunt, locules 3 or 4, the placentae each with 4 vertical rows of ovules. Flowers creamy white. Fruit pedicellate (pedicels 0.1–0.6 cm long), more or less obconical to truncate-globose, ribbed, almost smooth, 0.5–0.8 cm long, 0.7–1 cm wide, rim thick, disc descending obliquely, valves 3 or 4, slender and prominently exserted but fragile. Seeds grey-brown to brown, 1.5–2.3 mm long, ovoid or flattened-ovoid, dorsal surface smooth, hilum ventral.Cultivated seedling: cotyledons Y-shaped (bisected); stems rounded in cross-section; leaves opposite for ca 11 to 12 nodes then alternate, sessile and linear at lowest node then becoming petiolate and elliptical then ovate after alternation, 2.5–3.5 cm long, 1.5–3.5 cm wide, base tapering, margin entire, apex rounded to acute, green to grey-green, dull.
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