Mallet to 10 m tall usually with short trunk and erect branches. Non-lignotuberousBark smooth throughout, grey, orange-grey and whitish, shedding in long ribbons.Branchlets have oil glands in the pith. Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): stems rounded to square in cross-section; juvenile leaves always petiolate, alternate, ovate to lanceolate, 6–9 cm long, 1.3–2 cm wide, grey-green, dull.Adult leaves alternate, petioles 1.2–2 cm long; blade narrowly lanceolate to falcate, 7–13 cm long, 0.7–2 cm wide, base tapering to petiole, margin entire, apex pointed, concolorous, glossy, bluish green maturing dark green, side-veins usually acute, rarely wider, reticulation dense to very dense, intramarginal vein present, oil glands intersectional, numerous, slightly irregular in outline.Inflorescence axillary unbranched, peduncles rounded or slightly flattened, 0.5–1.3 cm long, buds 7, pedicellate, pedicels 0.1–0.5 cm long. Mature buds ovoid to cylindrical (0.7–1.1 cm long, 0.4–0.5 cm wide), longitudinally striate, scar present (outer operculum shed early), inner operculum prominently beaked to conical (0.3–0.6 cm long), stamens inflexed, cuboid to wedge shaped versatile anthers, dorsifixed, dehiscing by longitudinal slits, style long and straight, stigma more or less rounded, locules (3)4 or 5, the placentae each with 4 vertical rows of ovules. Flowers white.Fruit pedicellate or sometimes almost sessile, pedicels 0.1–0.3 cm long, usually cupular, rarely tending to obconical, 0.4–0.7 cm long, 0.4–0.7 cm wide, unribbed, disc descending, valves (3)4 or 5, enclosed.Seeds reddish brown and glossy, 1.0–2.5 mm long, flattened-ovoid, sometimes pointed at one end, dorsal face lacunose but surface usually smooth or scarcely reticulate, hilum ventral.Cultivated seedlings (measured at node 10): cotyledons reniform; stems usually square in cross-section; leaves always petiolate, opposite for 3 to 5 nodes then alternate, ovate, 5–8 cm long, 1.5–3.5 cm wide, dull, green.
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