Mallee to 4 m tall. Forming a lignotuber.Bark smooth over most of the stems or occasionally some stems with fibrous rough bark for basal part to 0.5 m. Smooth bark grey to pink-grey to white over cream to coppery.Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): not seen.Adult leaves alternate, petiole 0.3–1 cm long, linear to narrowly lanceolate, 5.5–10.5 cm long; blade 0.5–1.2 cm wide, base tapering to petiole, concolorous, dull blue-green at first, maturing to slightly glossy, green, side-veins acute or at an angle greater than 45° to the midrib, densely reticulate, intramarginal vein parallel to and just within margin, oil glands numerous and mostly intersectional.Inflorescence axillary unbranched, peduncles 0.4–1 cm long, buds 9 to ?15, pedicellate, pedicels 0.2–0.4 cm long. Mature buds ovoid (0.5–1 cm long, 0.25–0.3 cm wide), scar present, operculum conical to horn-shaped (0.35–0.5 cm long), stamens irregularly flexed, anthers adnate to weakly versatile, basifixed, globoid, dehiscing by lateral pores, style long, stigma tapered, locules 3 or 4, the placentae each with 4 vertical ovule rows. Flowers white.Fruit pedicellate, pedicels 0.2–0.3 cm long, truncate-globose to cup-shaped, sometimes slightly urceolate, 0.5–0.6 cm long, 0.4–0.5 cm wide, disc descending, valves 3 or 4, valve tips strongly exserted due to fragile style remnants.Seeds light brown to grey, 1–2 mm long, ovoid or flattened-ovoid, occasionally with shallow longitudinal furrows on otherwise smooth dorsal surface, hilum ventral.Cultivated seedlings (measured at node 10): cotyledons Y-shaped (bisected); stems ± round or 5 or more sided in cross-section; smooth, leaves opposite, sessile to very shortly petiolate and linear for the first 2 to 7 nodes then becoming alternate or, in some seedlings becoming spirally arranged, sessile to very shortly petiolate, linear, 4–8.5 cm long, 0.3–0.8 cm wide, dull green.