Mallee to 3 m tall though often smaller. Lignotuber present.Bark smooth throughout, grey over pale orange or coppery.Branchlets with oil glands in the pith.Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): stems rounded in cross-section; juvenile leaves always petiolate, opposite at lowest node only then alternate, ovate to lanceolate, 4–7.5 cm long, 1.5–3 cm wide, base tapering, apex pointed, green.Adult leaves alternate, petioles 1–2(2.6) cm long; blade usually lanceolate, 4.7–8.5 cm long, 1.5–2.3(3) cm wide, base tapering to petiole, margin entire or shallowly subcrenulate in upper half, apex pointed, concolorous, glossy, green, "glazed", side-veins acute or obscure, reticulation obscure, intramarginal vein remote from margin, oil glands numerous, island, irregular in shape.Inflorescence axillary unbranched, peduncle broadly flattened, usually down-turned, 1.2–2.2 cm long, buds 7 per umbel, sessile to very shortly and stoutly pedicellate (pedicels 0.1–0.4 cm long). Mature buds more or less ovoid (0.8–1.5 cm long, 0.5–0.9 cm wide), egg-in-eggcup shape, i.e. the operculum narrower than the hypanthium at the join, scar present (outer operculum shed very early), operculum rounded-hemispherical or slightly elongated and rounded at top, smooth, hypanthium with 2 prominent longitudinal ridges/angles (and often 1 less prominent rib/angle also, rarely a fourth rib/angle present), stamens all inflexed (outer stamens only partly inflexed, inner more so), anthers narrowly oblong, versatile, dorsifixed, dehiscing by longitudinal slits, style long and straight, stigma blunt, locules 5-6(very rarely 4), the placentae each with 4 vertical rows of ovules. Flowers commonly red to pink, less commonly yellowish.Fruit peduncles usually down turned, fruit sessile or shortly pedicellate (pedicel 0–0.4 cm long), stoutly obconical to slightly campanulate, 0.9–1.3 cm long, 0.8–1.4 cm wide, with 2 prominent (and often 1 less prominent) longitudinal ridges, rim flat with disc descending from it, valves 5-6(very rarely 4), rim level.Seeds brown, 1–1.5 mm long, flattened-ovoid, dorsal surface clearly but shallowly reticulate, hilum ventral.Cultivated seedlings (measured at node 10): cotyledons Y-shaped (bisected); stems rounded in cross-section; leaves always petiolate, opposite for 3 to 5 nodes then alternate, ovate, 4–8 cm long, 1.5–3.5 cm wide, dull, green. Lignotuber obvious.
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