Mallee or tree to 4 m tall. Forming a lignotuber.Bark rough for lower half of trunk, fibrous or persistent ribbons, dark grey to grey-brown or blackish, or completely smooth on smaller mallees.Branchlets usually glaucous, occasional plant non-glaucous; oil glands present in the pith but may be sparse. Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): stems square in cross-section, glaucous; juvenile leaves always petiolate, soon alternate, rounded to broadly ovate or deltoid, 4.5–10.5 cm long, 4–6.5 cm wide, grey-green or glaucous. Adult leaves thick, alternate, petioles 1.5–3 cm long; blade lanceolate, 8.5–12.5 cm long, 1.5–3.3 cm wide, base tapering to petiole, margin entire, apex pointed, concolorous, dull, green to grey-green, side-veins greater than 45° to midrib, reticulation dense, intramarginal vein remote from margin, oil glands intersectional.Inflorescence axillary unbranched, peduncles flattened, 0.8–2 cm long, buds 7, 9 or 11, pedicellate (pedicels 0.2–0.5 cm long). Mature buds broadly fusiform to ovoid (1.1–1.6 cm long, 0.5–0.7 cm wide), scar present, operculum conical, stamens inflexed, anthers oblong, versatile, dorsifixed, dehiscing by longitudinal slits, style long and straight, stigma usually blunt, locules 4, the placentae each with 4 vertical rows of ovules. Flowers white. Fruit normally pedicellate, rarely sessile (pedicels 0–0.5 cm long), cylindrical to cupular, 0.8–1.2 cm long, 0.8–1 cm wide, disc descending obliquely, valves 4, at rim level or exserted. Seeds grey-brown, 1–2.5 mm long, ovoid to flattened-ovoid, dorsal surface shallowly reticulate, hilum ventral. Cultivated seedlings (measured at ca node 10): cotyledons Y-shaped (bisected); not grown beyond this stage.
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