Tree to 10 m tall. Ironbark throughout, dark grey to black. Forming a lignotuber.Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): stem square in cross-section; juvenile leaves opposite for a few pairs, becoming alternate, very shortly petiolate (to 0.3 cm), narrowly lanceolate, (4)6–13.5 cm long, 0.7–3.5 cm wide, glossy green.Adult leaves alternate, petiole 0.7–1.7 cm long; blade narrowly lanceolate or falcate, 6.5–12 cm long, 0.7–1.6 cm wide, base tapering to petiole, concolorous, glossy, green, side-veins at an angle less than 45° to midrib, densely to very densely reticulate, intramarginal vein parallel to and just within margin, oil glands intersectional.Inflorescence terminal compound or axillary compound in axils below this, peduncles (0.2)0.4–0.8 cm long, buds 7 per umbel, pedicels 0.2–0.4 cm long. Mature buds ovoid to obovoid, 0.5–0.6 cm long, 0.3–0.4 cm wide, scar present (outer operculum shed by about half mature bud size), inner operculum conical to rounded and narrower than hypanthium, stamens inflexed, outer filaments lack anthers (staminodes), anthers adnate, basally attached and positioned obliquely at filament tip, more or less cuboid, dehiscing by terminal pores, style long, stigma pin-head, locules 4 or 5, the placentae each with 4 vertical ovule rows. Flowers white.Fruit on pedicels 0.3–0.4 cm long, cup-shaped to barrel-shaped, 0.4–0.7 cm long, 0.4–0.6 cm wide, disc descending, valves 4 or 5, near rim level or enclosed, staminophore persistent.Seeds brown, 1–1.5 mm long, flattened-ovoid, shallowly reticulate, hilum ventral. Cultivated seedlings (measured at ca node 10): cotyledons reniform to oblong; stems square in cross-section; leaves always petiolate, opposite for ca 5 nodes then alternate, narrowly lanceolate to linear, 3–8.5 cm long, 0.5–2.5 cm wide, base tapering, green.
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