Mallee to 4 m tall. Forming a lignotuber. Bark smooth throughout, silvery white to pinkish brown, grey-brown and pale coppery, shedding in ribbons. Branchlets have oil glands in the pith. Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): stems rounded in cross-section; juvenile leaves always petiolate, alternate, ovate-lanceolate to elliptical, 3.5–7.5 cm long, 1.5–3 cm wide, blue-green. Adult leaves alternate, petioles 0.7–2.5 cm long; blade lanceolate to narrowly so, sometimes falcate, 5–10 cm long, (0.5)0.8–1.8(2.2) cm wide, base tapering to petiole, margin entire, apex pointed, concolorous, green, only slightly glossy, side-veins at an acute or wider angle to midrib, reticulation sparse to moderate and clear, intramarginal vein remote from margin, oil glands irregular, numerous, island. Inflorescence axillary unbranched, pendulous, peduncles flattened, narrow but widening apically, 1–4 cm long, buds 7, pedicellate (pedicels 0.1–1.2 cm long). Mature buds elongated and asymmetrically fusiform (1.3–2.8 cm long, 0.3–0.7 cm wide), scar present (outer operculum shed early), inner operculum horn-shaped, ca 2–3 times the length of the hypanthium, stamens erect, anthers oblong, versatile, dorsifixed, dehiscing by longitudinal slits, style long and straight, stigma blunt, locules 4(5), the placentae each with 4 vertical rows of ovules. Flowers usually lemon-yellow to greenish yellow. Fruit pendulous, pedicellate (pedicels 0.3–1.2 cm long), obconical to almost cylindrical, 0.6–1.5 cm long, 0.7–1(1.2) cm wide, disc level at first then descending, valves 4(5), at rim level or exserted. Seeds blackish brown, 1–2 mm long, ovoid to flattened-ovoid, dorsal surface shallowly and clearly reticulate, hilum ventral. Cultivated seedlings (measured at node 10): cotyledons Y-shaped (bisected); stems rounded in cross-section; leaves always petiolate, opposite for 3 to 6 nodes then alternate, ovate-lanceolate, becoming narrower up stem, 3.5–6 cm long, 0.8–3 cm wide, dull, green.
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