Mallee to 7 m tall. Forming a lignotuber. Bark smooth throughout, shedding in short strips, coppery and grey-green to silvery grey. Branchlets have oil glands in the pith. Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): not seen. Adult leaves alternate, petioles 0.1–0.4 cm long; blade linear, 3–5.5 cm long, 0.2–0.5 cm wide, base tapering to petiole, margin usually entire, apex pointed or blunt, concolorous, green to grey-green with "glazed" surface, with only the midrib visible-the side-veins, intramarginal vein and reticulation obscured by the abundant oil glands. Inflorescence axillary, peduncles narrow and slightly flattened, 0.3–1 cm long, buds in (3)7s, pedicellate (pedicels 0.2–0.6 cm long). Mature buds narrowly ovoid to fusiform (0.9–1.4 cm long, 0.3–0.5 cm wide), the hypanthium wider than the operculum at the join, scar present (outer operculum lost early), operculum ca 2–3 times the length of the hypanthium, horn shaped to long-conical, stamens all erect, anthers oblong, dorsifixed, dehiscing by longitudinal slits, style long and straight, stigma ± blunt, locules (3)4, the placentae each with 4 vertical rows of ovules. Flowers creamy white. Fruit pedicellate (pedicels 0.1–0.5 cm long), cupular to obconical, 0.5–0.8 cm long, 0.5–0.7 cm wide, disc descending to ovary roof, valves (3)4, at about rim level, sometimes with delicate style remains persisting. Seeds 0.8–2 mm long, ovoid to flattened-ovoid, dorsal surface clearly but shallowly reticulate, hilum ventral. Cultivated seedlings (measured at ca node 10): cotyledons Y-shaped (bisected); stems rounded in cross-section, maybe slightly scabrid on lower internodes; leaves subsessile, opposite for 2 to 5 nodes then alternate, linear, 5.5–9.5 cm long, 0.3–1 cm wide, green, dull until ca node 8 then becoming glossy, narrower; lower leaves minutely warty on both surfaces.
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