Mallet to 10 m tall. Lignotuber absent. Bark smooth through, rarely with up to 1 m of thin rough bark at the base of trunk, smooth bark grey-white to dark grey or coppery red. Branchlets lacking oil glands in the pith. Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): not seen. Adult leaves alternate, petioles 0.6–1.8 cm long; blade lanceolate to narrowly so, (5)6–9.5(10.3) cm long, (0.5)0.7–1.4 cm wide, base tapering to petiole, margin entire, apex acute, concolorous, glossy, green, side-veins usually acute, reticulation sparse to moderate, intramarginal vein remote from margin, oil glands large, island. Inflorescence axillary unbranched, peduncles 0.5–1.1 cm long, buds 7, pedicellate, pedicels 0.3–0.5 cm long. Mature buds oblong in outline, square in cross-section and prominently angled (1.1–1.5 cm long, 0.4–0.5 cm wide), scar present (outer operculum shed early), operculum conical (0.4–0.5 cm long), stamens inflexed, the outer longer and infertile (staminodes), the inner shorter with weakly versatile oblong-reniform anthers basifixed to the tapering filament, dehiscing by subterminal pores, style long and straight, stigma blunt to tapered, locules 3 or 4, the placentae each with 4 vertical rows of ovules. Flowers creamy white. Fruit erect to spreading, pedicellate, pedicels 0.3–0.6 cm long, narrowly urceolate and square in cross-section, 1–1.5 cm long, 0.4–0.7 cm wide, disc descending vertically, valves 3 or 4, enclosed. Seeds brown, 1–2 mm long, flattened-ovoid, dorsal surface more or less smooth, hilum ventral. Cultivated seedlings (measured at node 10): cotyledons Y-shaped (bisected); stems rounded in cross-section, smooth or slightly warty; leaves shortly petiolate, opposite for 4 or 6 nodes then alternate, ovate to lanceolate, 2–3.5 cm long, 0.7–1.5 cm wide, dull, green.
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