Prostrate sprawling mallee or low decumbent shrub to 1 m tall and spreading for up to 5 m wide. Forming a lignotuber.Bark smooth throughout, pale grey to silvery grey.Branchlets square in cross-section; lacking oil glands in the pith. Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): not seen. Adult leaves coarse, thick, usually alternate, petioles 2.0–4.8 cm long; blade broadly lanceolate, apiculate, 16.5–26.3 cm long, 4.5–6.7 cm wide, base tapering to petiole or rounded, margin entire, apex pointed, concolorous, glossy, green, side-veins greater than 45° to midrib, reticulation dense, intramarginal vein remote from margin, oil glands intersectional, few or not visible. Inflorescence axillary unbranched, peduncles rigidly down-turned, with broad curved wings, 0.5–1.5 cm long; bud solitary, sessile. Mature buds more or less cuboid with 4 broad wings at the angles (bud dimensions including wings to ca 5 cm long, 3.5 cm wide), hypanthium red tapering a little basally, scar present (outer operculum shed early), operculum pyramidal (ca 1.5–2 cm long), stamens inflexed, filaments glandular, anthers small cuboid, versatile, sub-basifixed, dehiscing by longitudinal slits, style long and straight, stigma tapered, locules 4, number of ovule rows unknown. Flowers red to pink. Fruit on rigidly down-turned winged peduncles, pedicel absent; cuboid and prominently winged, 3.4–3.8 cm long, 3–4.1 cm wide (including wings), wings extending to 5–7 mm above rim curving towards the disc which descends vertically, valves 4, enclosed. Seeds black or dark grey, 4–5 mm long, shortly pyramidal, with prominent ridges continuous with conspicuous encircling marginal flange, dorsal surface shallowly reticulate, hilum terminal.Cultivated seedlings (measured at ca node 10) : cotyledons reniform; stems prostrate, rounded to square in cross-section; leaves always petiolate, opposite for 2 to 4 nodes then alternate, elliptic to ovate to broadly lanceolate, 4–6 cm long, 2–2.5 cm wide, dull, green. (Data from Hopper & McQuoid 2009).
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