Mallee to 5 m tall. Forming a lignotuber.Bark smooth throughout, rarely with a very short stocking of rough fibrous bark. Smooth bark white to pinkish orange and light grey, shedding in ribbons.Branchlets have oil glands in the pith; glaucous or non-glaucous.Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): stems rounded or square in cross-section, glaucous; juvenile leaves always petiolate, alternate, ovate or rarely deltoid, 4–8 cm long, 2.2–4 cm wide, glaucous. Adult leaves alternate, petioles 1.2–3.1 cm long; blade lanceolate to broadly so, or sometimes falcate, 6.2–13.5(16) cm long, 1–2.8 cm wide, base tapering to petiole, margin entire, apex pointed, concolorous, dull, blue to blue-green or grey-green, rarely glaucous, side-veins at an acute or wider angle to the midrib, reticulation dense to very dense, intramarginal vein present, oil glands mostly intersectional.Inflorescence axillary single, peduncles rounded to angular, 0.6–2 cm long, buds 7, 9, 11 or 13, pedicellate, pedicels 0.3–0.5 cm long. Mature buds pyriform or cylindrical (0.8–1.2 cm long, 0.5–0.6 cm wide), glaucous or non-glaucous, scar present (outer operculum shed early), inner operculum conical to beaked (0.35–0.5 cm long), radially striate, stamens inflexed, all fertile, anthers versatile, dorsifixed, cuboid to wedge shaped, dehiscing by longitudinal slits, style long and straight, stigma tapering, locules 4(5), the placentae each with 4 vertical ovule rows. Flower colour not known.Fruit pedicellate, pedicels 0.1–0.6 cm long, elongated cup-shaped to cylindrical or obconical, 0.7–1.2 cm long, (0.6)0.7–0.9 cm wide, glaucous or non-glaucous, disc descending obliquely, valves 4(5), at rim-level or enclosed.Seeds reddish brown and glossy, 1–2 mm long, flattened-ovoid, dorsal surface often lacunose, shallowly reticulate, hilum ventral. Cultivated seedlings (measured at ca node 10): cotyledons reniform; stems square to rounded in cross-section, glaucous or not so; leaves always petiolate, opposite for 3 to 6 nodes then becoming alternate, ovate, 2–7.2 cm long, 0.9–3 cm wide, dull, green, or glaucous but usually only on new growth.
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