Tree to 15 m tall. Forming a lignotuber.Bark smooth, becoming granular with age, mottled grey, orange, brown and pink; branchlets glaucous or non-glaucous.Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): stem usually square in cross-section; juvenile leaves always petiolate, opposite for 5–7 pairs then alternate, ovate, 4.5–10.5 cm long, 3–7 cm wide, base rounded or tapering to petiole, dull, blue-green.Adult leaves alternate, petiole 1.5–2.6 cm long, blade lanceolate to falcate, 5.5–16 cm long, 1.5–3.7 cm wide, base tapering to petiole, concolorous, dull, grey-green to bluish green or slightly glaucous, side-veins greater than 45° to midrib, moderately reticulate, intramarginal vein parallel to and remote from margin, oil glands mostly island.Inflorescence axillary unbranched, peduncles 0.8–2 cm long, 7-flowered, buds pedicellate (pedicels 0.2–0.5 cm long). Mature buds ovoid, rarely cylindrical (1–1.5 cm long, 0.4–0.6 cm wide), green, creamy or glaucous, scar present, operculum horn-shaped to bluntly conical (0.7–1.1 cm long), stamens erect, anthers cuboid to oblong, versatile, dorsifixed, dehiscing by longitudinal slits (non-confluent), style long, stigma blunt, locules 3 or 4, the placentae each with 6 vertical ovule rows. Flowers white.Fruit pedicellate (pedicels 0.2–0.5 cm long), cup-shaped or hemispherical, 0.3–0.8 cm long, 0.5–1 cm wide, glaucous or non-glaucous, disc variable, raised-vertical to annular or descending, valves 3 or 4, strongly exserted.Seeds brown, 1–1.3 mm long, pyramidal or cuboid, dorsal surface usually shallowly pitted, hilum terminal. Cultivated seedlings (measured at ca node 10): cotyledons oblong; stems rounded to square in cross-section; leaves always petiolate, opposite for 5–7 nodes, then alternate, broadly ovate, 3.7–10.5 cm long, 3–7 cm wide, base truncate to tapering, margin entire, apex rounded, dull, green to grey-green.
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