Mallee to 4 m tall. Forming a lignotuber. Bark smooth, grey, green, brown, white, cream and orange, at times with ribbons of decorticated bark in the branches. Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): stems round in cross-section; juvenile leaves always opposite and sessile, crowded on stems, elliptical to obovate or ovate, 1–2 cm long, 0.4–0.8 cm wide, base tapering, surface distinctly glandular, green. Crown consisting of juvenile leaves; on flowering branchlets the leaves to 3.2 cm long and 0.4–0.8 cm wide, conspicuously recurved in distal half, discolorous, dull to slightly glossy, green, side-veins greater than 45° to midrib, reticulation invisible, intramarginal vein parallel to and just within margin, oil glands island. Inflorescence axillary unbranched, peduncles 0.3–0.5 cm long, buds 3 per umbel; buds sessile or on 0.1 cm pedicels. Mature buds broadly ovoid and rugose, 0.4–0.5 cm long, 0.3–0.4 cm wide, scar present (outer operculum shed midway through bud dvelopment), operculum rounded (pointed when immature), stamens inflexed, anthers cuboid to oblong, versatile, dorsifixed, dehiscing by longitudinal slits (non-confluent), style short, stigma blunt, locules 3 or 4, the placentae each with 4 vertical ovule rows. Flowers white. Fruit sessile, hemispherical, 0.3 cm long, 0.4–0.6 cm wide, disc level or descending, valves 3 or 4, near rim level. Seeds brown, 0.8–1.3 mm long, ovoid or flattened-ovoid, dorsal surface smooth or shallowly pitted, hilum ventral. Cultivated seedlings (measured at ca node 10): cotyledons bilobed to oblong; stems square in cross-section; leaves sessile and opposite for many nodes, ovate, 0.4–2.1 cm long, 0.4–0.8 cm wide, base tapering, margin entire, apex rounded, dull, green.
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