Tree to 25 m tall. Forming a lignotuber.Ironbark, dark grey to black. Branches c. 5 cm diameter or narrower often smooth-barked.Oil glands sometimes present in the pith of the branchlets.Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): stem square in cross-section, not glaucous, smooth; juvenile leaves opposite for a few pairs, becoming alternate, sessile to shortly petiolate (petioles ca 0.5 cm long), ovate to lanceolate, 7–13 cm long, 0.6–4(4.6) cm wide, base tapering or sometimes oblique, apex pointed, glossy dark green, discolorous.Adult leaves alternate, petiole 0.8–2(2.5) cm long; blade lanceolate, rarely falcate, 8–16(18.5) cm long, (1)1.5–2.5(3.4) cm wide, base tapering to petiole, concolorous to slightly discolorous, glossy, green, side-veins usually at an angle less than 45° to the midrib, sometimes slightly greater than 45° to midrib, densely to very densely reticulate, intramarginal vein parallel to and well removed from the margin, oil glands intersectional.Inflorescence terminal compound, or axillary compound or sometimes axillary single in axils below this, peduncles (0.8)1–2(2.2) cm long, buds 7 per umbel, pedicels 0.3–1 cm long. Mature buds obovoid to pyriform, 0.7–1 cm long, 0.4–0.5 cm wide, rarely ovoid, scar present, operculum conical to rarely slightly beaked and narrower and much shorter than the hypanthium, stamens inflexed, with outer filaments lacking anthers (staminodes), anthers adnate, positioned obliquely at filament tip, 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 0.3–0.9 cm long, barrel-shaped, rarely cup-shaped to almost cylindrical, 0.7–1.3 cm long, 0.5–1 cm wide, disc descending, valves 4 or 5, enclosed.Seeds brown, 2–2.5 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 3 to 5 nodes then alternate, linear to narrowly lanceolate to lanceolate, 8–15(16) cm long, 0.8–2.2 cm wide, base tapering, glossy green.
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