Mallet to 10 m tall. Non-lignotuberous. Bark smooth throughout, white or cream to pale grey and pinkish. Branchlets have oil glands in the pith. Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): stems square in cross-section; leaves always petiolate, coarse, alternate, ovate becoming lanceolate up stem, 8–12 cm long, 5–11 cm wide, dull, bluish green at lower nodes becoming green up stem. Adult leaves, alternate, petioles 1.8–3.3 cm long; blade lanceolate, 9–15.5 cm long, 1.5–3.5 cm wide, thickish, base tapering to petiole, margin entire, apex pointed, glossy, green, side-veins at an acute or wider angle to midrib, reticulation dense to very dense, intramarginal vein remote from margin, oil glands mostly intersectional. Inflorescence axillary unbranched, peduncles stout, 0.2–0.5 cm long, buds 7, sessile to rarely shortly pedicellate, pedicels 0–0.2 cm long. Mature buds squat, shortly cylindrical to ovoid, ribbed at least on the operculum, (0.9–1.3 cm long, 0.6–0.8 cm wide), scar present, operculum conical or shortly beaked (0.4–0.6 cm long), at times wider than the hypanthium, stamens inflexed, cuboid to wedge shaped versatile anthers, sub-basifixed, dehiscing by longitudinal slits, style long and straight, stigma blunt, locules 4(5), the placentae each with 4 vertical rows of ovules. Flowers not seen. Fruit sessile, cupular, 0.6–1.1 cm long, 0.8–1.1 cm wide, scarcely ribbed, disc descending usually obliquely, valves 4(5), at rim level. Seeds reddish brown and glossy, 1.2–3 mm long, flattened-ovoid and slightly angular, dorsal surface lacunose or not, smooth or hardly reticulate, hilum ventral. Cultivated seedlings (measured at node 10): cotyledons reniform; stems square to rounded in cross-section, slightly warty or smooth; leaves always petiolate, opposite for 3 or 4 nodes then alternate, ovate-lanceolate, 7–9 cm long, 2.5–4.5 cm wide, dull, green.
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