Usually a small tree to 10 m tall, occasionally taller to 17 m. Forming a lignotuber.Ironbark to the small branches, dark grey to black; branchlets usually glaucous but glaucescence fading with age.Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): stem square in cross-section, glaucous; juvenile leaves petiolate, alternate, ovate to broadly lanceolate, 8–15 cm long, 3.5–7 cm wide, base rounded or tapering to petiole, glaucous.Adult leaves alternate, petiole 1–2 cm long; blade lanceolate, 8–14 cm long, 1.7–3.2 cm wide, base tapering to petiole, concolorous, dull to rarely slightly glossy, grey-green to green, side-veins normally at an angle greater than 45° to midrib, densely reticulate, intramarginal vein parallel to and just within margin, oil glands intersectional.Inflorescence terminal compound, peduncles 0.4–0.9 cm long, buds usually 7 per umbel, rarely 3s, pedicels 0.2–0.5 cm long. Mature buds obovoid to ovoid, ca 0.7 cm long, ca 0.4 cm wide, scar usually present (first operculum sheds very early in bud development), operculum conical to rounded, stamens irregularly flexed, anthers cuboid, adnate, slits or pores separate, style long, stigma pin-head shaped, locules 4, the placentae each with 4 vertical ovule rows. Flowers white.Fruit on pedicels 0.2–0.5 cm long, cup-shaped, 0.5–0.7 cm long, 0.5–0.7 cm wide, disc descending, valves 4, tips near the rim or enclosed or sometimes slightly exserted. (There may be a persistent staminophore which can be misinterpreted as a raised disc).Seeds brown, 1.5–2 mm long, flattened-ovoid, dorsal surface shallowly reticulate, hilum ventral. Cultivated seedlings (measured at ca node 10):cotyledons small, reniform; stems square in cross-section, glaucous; leaves always petiolate, opposite for 5–7 nodes then alternate, ovate-lanceolate, 7.5–9.7 cm long, 2–3.5 cm wide, base tapering, margin entire, apex pointed, discolorous, dull, slightly glaucous over green to grey-green.
Home