Mallee to 10 m tall. Forming a lignotuber. Bark smooth, white, grey or coppery. Branchlets have oil glands in the pith. Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): stems square in cross-section, smooth or slightly warty; juvenile leaves always petiolate, opposite until node 3 to 5, broadly ovate to broadly lanceolate, 5–10 cm long, 3–6 cm wide, base tapering to petiole or rounded, dull and green above; growing tip conspicuously waxy but this is soon lost as leaves expand. Adult leaves alternate, petiole 1–2.2 cm long; blade lanceolate, 7–12 cm long, 1.2–2.5 cm wide, base tapering to petiole, concolorous, dull, green to blue-grey, rarely glaucous, side-veins greater than 45° to midrib, densely reticulate with erose veinlets, intramarginal vein parallel to and just within margin, oil glands mostly intersectional or obscure. Inflorescence axillary unbranched, peduncles 0.8–2 cm long, buds 7, shortly pedicellate, rarely sessile, pedicels (0)0.1–0.2 cm long. Mature buds pyriform (0.8–1.2 cm long, 0.6–0.7 cm wide), non-glaucous, slightly ribbed longitudinally on hypanthium, scar present, operculum rounded to conical (0.4–0.6 cm long), wider than hypanthium and conspicuously ribbed, stamens inflexed, anthers cuboid to wedge-shaped, versatile, dorsifixed, dehiscing by longitudinal slits (non-confluent), style long, stigma tapered, locules 3 to 5, the placentae each with 4 vertical ovule rows. Flowers white. Fruit usually shortly pedicellate, pedicels (0)0.1–0.3 cm long, cup-shaped to obconical, 0.6–0.8 cm long, 0.5–0.9 cm wide, usually slightly ribbed longitudinally, disc descending, valves 3 to 5, near rim level. Seeds reddish brown and glossy, 1.5–2.3 mm long, depressed-ovoid, dorsal surface shallowly pitted, hilum ventral. Cultivated seedlings (measured at ca node 10): cotyledons reniform; stems square in cross-section; leaves always petiolate, opposite for 3 to 5 nodes then alternate, ovate, 5–8.5 cm long, 3–5.5 cm wide, base rounded to tapering, dull, green to bluish green sometimes with slight waxy bloom.
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