Mallee to 5 m tall. Forming a lignotuber. Bark smooth throughout, pale brown-grey, tan and satiny pale grey. 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, linear to oblong-elliptic to narrowly lanceolate, 3–9 cm long, 0.7–2.5 cm wide, green, glossy. Adult leaves held more or less erect, alternate, petioles 0.5–1.8 cm long, narrowly lanceolate to elliptical, 4–9 cm long, 0.7–2.5 cm wide, base tapering to petiole, margin entire, apex pointed, concolorous, glossy, green, the surface appearing "glazed", side-veins acute or obscure, reticulation invisible, intramarginal vein present or obscure, oil glands numerous, round. Inflorescence axillary unbranched, pendulous, peduncles flattened, 1.8–3 cm long, ?(7 or 9) to11-flowered; buds pedicellate (pedicels 0.5–0.9 cm long). Mature buds elongated and widest below the join, 2.8–4 cm long, 0.5–0.6 cm wide, scar present (outer operculum shed early), operculum slender and horn-shaped, stamens erect, anthers oblong, versatile, dorsifixed, dehiscing by longitudinal slits, style long and straight, stigma rounded or slightly dilated, locules 4, the placentae each with 4 vertical rows of ovules. Flowers lemon-yellow. Fruit down-turned, pedicellate (pedicels 0.2–0.7 cm long), cupular to stoutly barrel-shaped, 0.7–1 cm long, 0.6–1.1 cm wide, disc descending, obscured by persistent staminophore, valves 4, tips at rim level. Seeds brown to grey-brown, 0.7–2 mm long, ovoid to flattened-ovoid, dorsal surface clearly and shallowly reticulate, hilum ventral. Cultivated seedlings (measured at node 10): cotyledons Y-shaped (bisected); stems rounded in cross-section; leaves always shortly petiolate, opposite for 2 to 5 nodes then alternate ovate to lanceolate, 7–11.5 cm long, 2–3 cm wide, dull, greyish green becoming green at upper nodes.
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