Tree to 12 m tall, rarely a mallee. Forming a lignotuber.Bark rough, grey, box-type, extending to the small branches.Branchlets lack oil glands in the pith; not glaucous.Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): stems square or rounded in cross-section; juvenile leaves shortly petiolate, alternate, ovate to lanceolate, 4.5–9(12) cm long, 1–3.2 cm wide, dull, grey-green. Adult leaves alternate, petioles 0.5–1.7 cm long; blade lanceolate to narrowly lanceolate, 6.5–13 cm long, 0.8–2 cm wide, base tapering to petiole, margin entire, apex finely pointed, concolorous, dull, green, side-veins acute and somewhat irregular, reticulation dense to very dense, intramarginal vein present and well removed from the margin, oil glands mostly intersectional.Inflorescence terminal compound, peduncles 0.2–0.8 cm long; buds 7 per umbel, pedicels 0.2–0.6 cm long. Mature buds obovoid, 0.3–0.5 cm long, 0.2–0.3 cm wide, scar present (outer operculum shed early and often remaining semi-attached at the apex of the inner operculum), operculum rounded, sometimes apiculate, stamens inflexed, outer stamens without anthers (staminodes), anthers ± adnate (filament apex tapers slightly), basifixed, cuboid to globoid, dehiscing by lateral slits, style long or sometimes shorter (c 3/4 the length of the operculum), straight, stigma blunt to tapering, locules 3, the placentae each with 4 vertical ovule rows. Flowers white.Fruit on pedicels 0.3–0.6 cm long, cup-shaped, 0.3–0.5 cm long, 0.35–0.5 cm wide, disc descending vertically, valves 3, usually enclosed, sometimes at rim level.Seeds brown, 1–2 mm long, flattened-ovoid, dorsal surface shallowly reticulate, hilum ventral. Cultivated seedlings (measured at ca node 10): cotyledons small, more or less reniform; stems usually square in cross-section; leaves always petiolate (petioles to 0.7cm), opposite for 5 to 10 nodes then becoming alternate, lanceolate, 4.5–11 cm long, 0.8–2.4 cm long, base tapering to petiole, apex pointed or blunt, dull, green to blue-green or grey-green.
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