Mallee to 4 m tall. Forming a lignotuber. Bark smooth, mottled shades of pale and dark grey. Branchlets lacking oil glands in the pith. Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): stems rounded in cross-section; juvenile leaves sessile to shortly petiolate, opposite, linear to narrowly lanceolate, 4–11 cm long, 0.5–1.5(3) cm wide, blue-grey to slightly glaucous. Adult leaves stiff, erect, alternate, petioles 0.7–1.6 cm; blade linear to narrowly lanceolate, 6.2–12.3 cm long, 0.7–1.8 cm wide, base tapering to petiole, margin entire, apex acute, dull, bluish green, side-veins at an acute or wider angle to midrib, reticulation moderate, intramarginal vein remote from margin, oil glands island, irregularly shaped, or obscure. Inflorescence axillary unbranched, peduncles 0.6–1.5 cm long, buds 7 per umbel, pedicels 0.2–0.7 cm long. Mature buds diamond-shaped, 1.2–1.7 cm long, 0.8–1 cm wide, scar absent, operculum single, conical or sometimes beaked, pink when mature, stamens irregularly flexed, anthers oblong, versatile, dorsifixed, dehiscing by longitudinal slits (non-confluent apically), style long and straight, stigma tapered, locules 3 or 4(5), the placentae each with 2 vertical rows of ovules. Flowers creamy white. Fruit pedicels 0.3–0.7 cm long, cupular to obconical, 0.7–1.4 cm long, 1.1–1.6 cm wide, disc level or slightly raised and convex to oblique or flattish, valves 3 or 4(5), at rim level. Seeds brown and virtually identical with the chaff particles, 1.5–3 mm long, pyramidal to D-shaped, dorsal surface smooth, hilum terminal. Cultivated seedlings (measured at ca node 10): cotyledons reniform; stems rounded in cross-section, smooth to slightly warty or even slightly scabrid for the lower 5 internodes (variable); leaves opposite, sessile and amplexicaul for at least 11 nodes, broadly lanceolate, 5.5–9.5 cm long, 1.8–3.5 cm wide, lowest leaves discolorous and dark green, glossy, becoming dull and slightly grey-green up stem, concolorous after node 6.
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