Tree (mallet) to 18 m tall. Lignotuber absent. Bark smooth throughout, grey to creamy-grey to orange-brown, shedding in strips and short ribbons. Branchlets glaucous; lacking oil glands in the pith. Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): stem square in cross-section, glaucous, juvenile leaves opposite, sessile, ovate to elliptical, not measured, glaucous, apex pointed, bases strongly decurrent on stem. Adult leaves alternate, petiole (1.7)2–3(3.3) cm long; blade lanceolate, 8–15.5 cm long, 1.5–3.5 cm wide, base tapering to petiole, concolorous, dull, green to grey-green to blue-green, side-veins at an acute or wider angle to midrib, densely to very densely reticulate, intramarginal vein parallel to and just within margin, oil glands numerous and mostly intersectional. Inflorescence axillary unbranched, peduncles 0.7–1.3 cm long, erect; buds usually 7, pedicellate (pedicels 0.1-0.4 cm long). Mature buds ± ovoid to rhomboid (c. 1.2 cm long, c. 0.6 cm wide), glaucous, scar present, operculum conical to slightly beaked (0.7–0.8 cm long), stamens irregularly flexed, anthers versatile, basifixed, globoid, dehiscing by slits, style long, stigma tapered, locules 3 or 4, the placentae each with 4 vertical ovule rows. Flowers pale yellow. Fruit erect, fruit pedicellate (pedicels 0.1–0.4 cm long), cup-shaped to funnel-shaped, usually glaucous but glaucescence weathering with age, 0.7–0.8 cm long, 0.7–0.9 cm wide, disc level to slightly descending, valves 3 or 4, valve tips strongly exserted due to fragile style remnants. Seeds brown to grey, 1.5–2 mm long, ovoid or flattened-ovoid, rarely pointed at one end, occasionally with shallow longitudinal furrows on otherwise smooth dorsal surface, hilum ventral. Cultivated seedlings (measured at node 10): cotyledons Y-shaped (bisected); stems square in cross-section and prominently winged due to decurrent leaf bases, slightly glaucous; leaves opposite for many pairs (at least 20), sessile, linear to narrowly oblong for the first few nodes then becoming ovate, dull grey-green to slightly glaucous, 1.5–4 cm long, 0.5–3.2 cm wide, leaf base decurrent on stem.
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