Mallee to 3 m tall. Forming a lignotuber. Bark smooth throughout, brown and grey over creamy orange to yellowish. 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, ovate, 6–7.5 cm long, 3.3–4.5 cm wide, dull, blue-green. Adult leaves alternate, petioles 1–2 cm long; blade lanceolate, 6–10 cm long, 1.2–2.5(3) cm wide, base tapering to petiole, margin entire, apex pointed, concolorous, dull to slightly glossy, green, side-veins greater than 45° to midrib, reticulation moderate to dense, intramarginal vein remote from margin, oil glands numerous, island and intersectional. Inflorescence axillary unbranched, peduncles flattened, widening apically, 1–2 cm long, buds 11 to ?15, pedicellate (pedicels 0.1–0.4 cm long). Mature buds sausage-shaped (1.2–2.2 cm long, 0.3–0.5 cm wide), scar present, operculum horn-shaped, about three times the length of the hypanthium and equal to it in width at the join, few outer stamens erect, most stamens variably deflexed, anthers oblong, versatile, dorsifixed, dehiscing by longitudinal slits, style long and straight, stigma rounded to tapered, locules 3, the placentae each with 4 vertical rows of ovules. Flowers white to pale yellow. Fruit pedicellate (pedicels 0.1–0.4 cm long), usually cylindrical to elongated obconical, 0.7–1.1 cm long, 0.6–0.7 cm wide, disc descending vertically, valves 3, near rim level. Seeds straw-coloured, 1–2 mm long, sub-spherical, surface smooth, hilum ventral/terminal. Cultivated seedlings (measured at ca node 10): cotyledons Y-shaped (bisected); stems rounded in cross-section; leaves always petiolate, opposite for 3 or 4 nodes then alternate, ovate 4.5–9 cm long, 3–4.5 cm wide, dull to slightly glossy, green.
Home