Small tree to c. 6 m tall, occasionally to 10 m and often of poor form. Forming a lignotuber.Bark smooth and powdery throughout, new bark pale pink to pale orange, maturing to white. Branchlets very glaucous and 4-angled.Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): stems square in cross-section and prominently winged, usually glaucous; leaves opposite, always petiolate, lamina orbicular to deltoid, 9.5–15 cm long, 10–15.5 cm wide, base truncate or shallowly lobed, margin entire, apex usually rounded, rarely shallowly emarginate, grey-green to glaucous.Adult leaves usually opposite but occasionally sub-opposite to alternate, always petiolate, petioles flattened, 1.5–3.5 cm; blade orbicular to deltoid to rarely ovate, (7)9–15(17) cm long, (5.8)7–16 cm wide, base truncate to rounded, rarely lobed or tapering to the petiole, margin entire, apex rounded to pointed, concolorous, dull, glaucous, side-veins at a wider angle than 45° to the midrib, reticulation very dense, intramarginal vein present, looped well inside the margin, oil glands small, island and intersectional.Inflorescence axillary unbranched, peduncles (0.8)1–2 cm long, buds per umbel 3, sessile or pedicellate (pedicels 0–1 cm long). Mature buds obovoid to broadly fusiform, 1.4–2.5 cm long, 1.3–2.2 cm wide, glaucous, scar present and prominent, operculum rounded (0.7–1.5 cm long), hypanthium sometimes 2-ridged, stamens irregularly flexed or oblique, anthers oblong, versatile, dorsifixed, dehiscing by longitudinal slits, style long and straight, stigma blunt, locules 4, the placentae each with 4 to 6 vertical rows of ovules. Flowers white.Fruit sessile to rarely pedicellate (0–0.7 cm long), obconical, 0.9–1.5 cm long, 1.5–2.4 cm wide, usually glaucous, but glaucescence weathering with age, disc raised to level, convex to annular, valves normally 4, strongly exserted.Seeds dark brown to black, 2–2.5 mm long, ovoid to ± obliquely pyramidal, dorsal surface shallowly to sometimes deeply reticulate, sides often ribbed, edge of seed sharply toothed, hilum ventral or terminal. Cultivated seedlings (measured at ca node 10): cotyledons reniform to oblong; stems square in cross-section, not glaucous at this stage; leaves always petiolate (petioles 0.6–1 cm), opposite throughout, ovate to elliptic, 4.5–7.5 cm long, 1.6–3 cm wide, base tapering to petiole, apex bluntly pointed, green, discolorous.
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