Mallee to 3 m tall. Forming a lignotuber. Bark smooth throughout or on larger plants rough only at the base with some persistent ribbons, smooth bark pale grey and pale brown. Branchlets lacking oil glands in the pith. Juvenile stems rounded in cross-section; juvenile leaves always petiolate, opposite for lowest node only then alternate, ovate, 4.5–11 cm long, 3–5 cm wide, green to grey-green, dull. Adult leaves alternate, petiole 0.8–2.5 cm long; blade lanceolate, (6)7–12.7 cm long, 1–2.8 cm wide, base tapering to petiole, margin entire, apex pointed, concolorous, mid-green, usually glossy, side-veins greater than 45° to midrib, reticulation dense, intramarginal vein close to margin, oil glands absent or obscure. Inflorescence axillary unbranched, peduncles erect to spreading, 0.4–1.5 cm long, buds 9 to 15, pedicellate (pedicels 0.2–0.4 cm long). Mature buds ovoid (1–1.5 cm long, 0.4–0.6 cm wide), hypanthium ribbed or smooth, scar present (outer operculum shed early), operculum beaked, stamens inflexed, anthers cuboid, versatile, sub-basifixed, dehiscing by longitudinal slits, style long and straight, stigma more or less blunt, locules 3 or 4, the placentae each with 4 vertical rows of ovules. Flowers creamy white. Fruit pedicellate (pedicels 0.2–0.4 cm long), usually truncate-globose, ribbed, wrinkled or smooth, 0.5–0.8 cm long, 0.7–1 cm wide, rim thick, disc descending vertically, valves 3 or 4, slender and prominently exserted but fragile. Seeds grey-brown to brown, 1–2.5 mm long, ovoid or flattened-ovoid, dorsal surface smooth to very shallowly reticulate, hilum ventral. Cultivated seedling: cotyledons Y-shaped (bisected); stems square to rounded in cross-section; leaves opposite for ca 9–11 nodes then alternate, sessile and linear to node 2 then becoming petiolate and narrowly elliptical then ovate, 2.5–7 cm long, 1.5–4 cm wide, base tapering, margin entire, apex rounded to acute, green to grey-green, dull.
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