Mallee to 4 m tall. Forming a lignotuber. Bark smooth throughout, dark and light grey over pinkish grey or yellow-grey and white. Branchlets not glaucous; lacking oil glands in the pith. Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): stems rounded in cross-section; juvenile leaves sessile to shortly petiolate, alternate, linear, 3.5–8 cm long, 0.2–0.4 cm wide, dull, grey-green. Adult leaves more or less erect, alternate, petioles 0.4–1 cm long; blade linear to narrowly oblong, (4.5)6–12 cm long, 0.5–1 cm wide, base tapering to petiole, margin entire, apex pointed, concolorous, dull, grey-green to bluish green, side-veins greater than 45° to midrib, reticulation dense, intramarginal vein close to margin, oil glands intersectional. Inflorescence axillary unbranched, pendulous, peduncles 1–3 cm long, buds (3)7, pedicellate, pedicels 0.7–1 cm long. Mature buds ovoid (1.1–1.7 cm long, 0.6–0.7 cm wide), scar present, operculum slenderly beaked (0.9–1.5 cm long), stamens connate into a tube for about half their length, a few outer filaments erect, remainder inflexed to varying degrees, anthers oblong, versatile, dorsifixed, dehiscing by longitudinal slits, style long and straight, stigma blunt to tapered, locules 4 or 5, the placentae each with 4 vertical rows of ovules. Flowers pink, sometimes cream or red. Fruit pedicellate, pedicels 0.8–1.1 cm long, shallowly hemispherical-obconical to almost saucer-shaped, 0.3–0.5 cm long, 0.6–1.2 cm wide, disc raised obliquely or convex, valves 4 or 5, rim level to exserted. Seeds brown, 1–2 mm long, angularly ovoid, scarcely ridged ventrally, dorsal surface shallowly reticulate, hilum ventral to more or less terminal. Cultivated seedlings (measured at node 10): cotyledons bisected; stems rounded in cross-section; leaves sessile to subsessile, opposite for 6 to 8 nodes then alternate, linear, 3.5–10 cm long, 0.2–0.6 cm wide, dull, green.
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