Tree to 12 m tall, rarely a mallee. Forming a lignotuber.Bark rough to small branches, box-type often tessellated, dark grey. Juvenile stems square to rounded in cross-section; juvenile leaves sessile to shortly petiolate, usually alternate, sometimes opposite, narrowly lanceolate to linear, 4.5–10 cm long, 0.4–1 cm wide, dull, blue-grey, rarely ± glaucous. Adult leaves alternate, petiole 0.5–1.7 cm long; blade lanceolate, (5)7–14(16.5) cm long, 0.7–2(2.3) cm wide, base tapering to petiole, concolorous, usually dull, sometimes glossy, green, side-veins at an acute angle to midrib, somewhat irregularly spaced, densely reticulate, intramarginal vein parallel to and well removed from margin, oil glands mostly intersectional. Inflorescence terminal compound, or with some axillary compound, peduncles 0.5–1.2 cm long; umbels 7-flowered, pedicels 0.2–0.7 cm long. Mature buds obovoid to rarely ovoid or pyriform, 0.3–0.6 cm long, 0.2–0.3 cm wide, green to yellow, scar usually absent (outer operculum remains intact with the inner and both are shed together at anthesis), operculum conical to rounded or shortly beaked (outer operculum with small lobes at the apex), stamens irregularly flexed, all fertile, anthers adnate, globoid to cuboid, dehiscing by lateral or subterminal pores, style long, stigma blunt to tapered, locules normally 3, rarely 4, the placentae each with 4 vertical ovule rows. Flowers white. Fruit on pedicels 0.2–0.6 cm long, usually cupular or barrel-shaped, 0.3–0.5 cm long, (0.2)0.3–0.4 cm wide, disc descending, valves 3 or 4, near rim level or enclosed. Seeds brown, 1–1.5 mm long, ovoid or flattened-ovoid, dorsal surface shallowly reticulate, hilum ventral. Cultivated seedlings (measured at ca node 10): cotyledons small, reniform; stems square in cross-section, warty or smooth; leaves always at least shortly petiolate (petioles 0.5–0.7 cm), opposite for about 5 to 7 nodes, narrowly lanceolate, 6.8–9.3 cm long, 1–2 cm wide, base tapering, dull, green, discolorous.
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