Mallee to 5 m tall. Forming a lignotuber.Bark smooth throughout whitish, pale grey to pale orange and tan. Branchlets lacking oil glands in the pith; not glaucous. Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): not seen.Adult leaves alternate, petioles 1–2 cm long; blade lanceolate, 7.5–14.7 cm long, 1–2.5(3) cm wide, base tapering to petiole, margin entire, apex pointed, concolorous, dull but when fully mature glossy, green to slightly blue-green, side-veins at an acute or wider angle to midrib, reticulation dense, intramarginal vein remote, oil glands conspicuous, intersectional. Inflorescence terminal compound, but occasionally single umbels in upper leaf axils also, peduncles thickened 0.4–1.2(2) cm long, buds 7 or 9 per umbel, pedicels thickened angular 0.15–0.6(1) cm long. Mature buds obovoid, 0.5–0.6 cm long, 0.3–0.5 cm wide, scar present (outer operculum lost early in bud development), operculum broadly conical to rounded, stamens inflexed, the outer filaments without anthers (staminodes), inner filaments fertile, anthers more or less cuboid, adnate, basifixed, dehiscing by sub-terminal pores, style long and straight, stigma blunt, locules 3 or 4(5), the placentae each with 4 vertical rows of ovules. Flowers creamy white. Fruit pedicellate (pedicels 0.15–0.6(1) cm long), barrel-shaped to weakly urceolate, 0.5–1 cm long, 0.4–0.7 cm wide, disc descending, valves 3 or 4(5), enclosed or just below rim level, rim thickish. Seeds brown, 1–2 mm long, ovoid to flattened-ovoid, dorsal surface shallowly reticulate, hilum ventral.Cultivated seedlings (measured at node 10): not grown; data from Nicolle & French (2012)cotyledons reniform; leaves dull blue-green, not waxy, ovate to 10 cm long, 6 cm wide.
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