Tree to 25 m tall. Forming a lignotuber.Bark rough on trunk and larger limbs, box-type, grey, smooth bark grey to green, pink or coppery.Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): stem square in cross-section, sometimes winged, smooth or warty; juvenile leaves opposite and sessile for many pairs, orbicular to ovate or broadly lanceolate, 3.5–10 cm long, 2.5–8 cm wide, amplexicaul, apex rounded or pointed, margin entire or crenulate, glossy and green or dull, grey-green or slightly glaucous.Adult leaves alternate, petiole 1.2–4 cm long; blade lanceolate to falcate, 9–30 cm long, 1–4 cm wide, base tapering to petiole, concolorous, glossy, green, side-veins at an acute or wider angle to midrib, densely reticulate, intramarginal vein parallel to and well removed from margin, oil glands intersectional and island.Inflorescence axillary unbranched, peduncles 0.5–1.7 cm long, often flattened, buds 7 per umbel, sessile or on pedicels to 0.5 cm long. Mature buds obovoid to oblong, often slightly angled longitudinally, 0.7–1 cm long, 0.3–0.5 cm wide, scar present, operculum rounded or conical, stamens irregularly flexed, anthers cuboid to oblong, versatile, dorsifixed, dehiscing by longitudinal slits (non-confluent), style long, stigma blunt, locules 3 or 4, the placentae each with 4 vertical ovule rows. Flowers white.Fruit sessile or with pedicels to 0.4 cm long, cup-shaped to cylindrical or barrel-shaped, 0.5–1 cm long, 0.7–1 cm wide, sometimes slightly angled longitudinally, disc raised-convex to annular, valves 3 or 4, exserted.Seeds black, 2–2.7 mm long, ovoid or flattened-ovoid, often pointed at one end, dorsal surface shallowly pitted, hilum ventral. Cultivated seedlings (measured at ca node 10): cotyledons bilobed to oblong; stems usually square in cross-section, sometimes winged also, non-glaucous; leaves sessile and opposite for at least 13 nodes, orbicular to cordate, 4–11 cm long, 2.5–7. cm wide, amplexicaul or the base rounded, slightly discolorous, mid-green above and paler beneath.
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