Mallee to 2 m tall. Forming a lignotuber.Bark rough over basal 0.5 m (or less) of trunks, greyish and fibrous, smooth pale grey to creamy brown above, shedding in strips.Branchlets have pale oil glands in the pith.Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): stems rounded in cross-section, smooth; leaves always at least shortly petiolate, alternate, elliptical lower on stem becoming narrowly lanceolate, 3.5–7 cm long, 1–1.5 cm wide, dull, grey-green becoming green up stem.Adult leaves alternate, petioles 0.7–1.5 cm long; blade lanceolate, 5–11.5 cm long, 1–2.2 cm wide, base tapering to petiole, margin entire, apex pointed, concolorous, dull at first becoming glossy, green, side-veins at an acute or wider angle to midrib, reticulation moderate to dense, broken, intramarginal vein present, oil glands intersectional, largish, irregular.Inflorescence axillary unbranched, peduncles slightly flattened, 0.3–0.7 cm long, buds 3 or 7, shortly pedicellate or virtually sessile, pedicels 0–0.2 cm long. Mature buds cylindrical (0.9–1.2 cm long, 0.5–0.7 cm wide), scar present (outer operculum falling early), inner operculum rounded and apiculate to more or less shortly and broadly conical (0.3–0.5 cm long), stamens inflexed, all stamens perfect (see below), anthers wedge-shaped, versatile, dorsifixed, dehiscing by longitudinal slits, style long and straight, stigma blunt to rounded, locules 4, the placentae each with 4 vertical rows of ovules. Flowers creamy white.Fruit sessile or almost so, pedicels 0–0.1 cm long, cylindrical, 0.6–0.9 cm long, 0.7–1 cm wide, with scar left by shedding of outer operculum conspicuous and vertical on outside of rim, disc descending, valves 4, enclosed.Seeds dark brown, 1.5–2.5 mm long, flattened ovoid, dorsal surface conspicuously pitted, margin shallowly toothed, hilum ventral.Cultivated seedlings (measured at node 10): cotyledons reniform; stems square to rounded in cross-section; leaves always petiolate, opposite for 2 to 5 nodes then alternate, ovate to lanceolate, 4–8 cm long, 1.5–3.5 cm wide, dull, green to grey-green.
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