Tree to 15 m tall. Lignotuber absent; epicormic buds present up stems. Bark smooth throughout, powdery, white to pale grey over salmon pink. Branchlets lacking oil glands in the pith. Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): stems rounded in cross-section, glaucous and very warty; juvenile leaves sessile and opposite becoming sub-opposite, cordate to orbicular, 1–2.7 cm long, 0.7–1.5 cm wide, base usually amplexicaul, sometimes rounded to truncate, margin subcrenulate, apex rounded, glaucous. Adult leaves alternate, petioles 0.5–1.3 cm long; blade linear to narrowly elliptic-lanceolate, 3.5–10.5 cm long, 0.4–1.2 cm wide, base tapering to petiole, margin entire, apex finely pointed, concolorous, glossy, green, side-veins at an acute or wider angle to midrib, reticulation moderate to dense, intramarginal vein present, oil glands large, intersectional. Inflorescence axillary unbranched, peduncles rounded to angular, 0.3–1 cm long, buds 7, 9 or 11, pedicellate, pedicels 0.2–0.5 cm long. Mature buds ovoid to fusiform (0.5–0.9 cm long, 0.25–0.4 cm wide), scar present, operculum conical to beaked (0.25–0.5 cm long), stamens inflexed, anthers cuneate-cuboid, adnate to filament apex (rigidly basifixed), dehiscing by sub-terminal pores, a few of the innermost stamens imperfectly formed, style long and straight, stigma blunt to tapered, locules 3(4), the placentae each with 4 vertical rows of ovules. Flowers creamy white. Fruit pedicellate (pedicels 0.2–0.5 cm long), shortly cupular to hemispherical, 0.2–0.5 cm long, 0.3–0.4(0.5) cm wide, disc pale, descending, valves 3(4), held about rim level. Seeds brown, 1–2 mm long, flattened-ovoid sometimes pointed at one end, dorsal surface sometimes with longitudinal furrows, smooth, hilum ventral. Cultivated seedlings (measured at node 10): cotyledons Y-shaped (bisected); stems usually rounded in cross-section, glaucous, very warty; leaves sessile, opposite for ca 20 to 25 nodes then tending to subopposite, cordate to orbicular, 0.8–2.7 cm long, 0.5–2 cm wide, bases amplexicaul to rounded or truncate, discolorous, usually quite glaucous on underside, grey-green to slightly glaucous above, rarely almost non-glaucous and green.
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