Tree to 15 m tall. Forming a lignotuber.Bark smooth throughout, pure white and powdery, some patches of older bark reddish to brown.Branchlets non-glaucous or, more rarely, glaucous; lacking oil glands in the pith. Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm) stems rounded in cross-section, non-glaucous or glaucous; juvenile leaves always petiolate, opposite for 1 or 2 nodes then alternate, broadly lanceolate, 8–12.5 cm long, 3–4.5 cm wide, base rounded or tapering, dull grey-green.Adult leaves alternate, petiole 0.7–2.3 cm long; blade lanceolate to falcate, (7.8)9–15(22) cm long, 0.8–2.5(3.5) cm wide, base tapering to petiole, margin entire, apex pointed, concolorous, dull, light green to grey-green, side-veins greater than 45° to midrib, reticulation very dense, intramarginal vein present, oil glands apparently absent.Inflorescence terminal compound, peduncles 0.1–1.3 cm long; buds 7 per umbel, pedicels 0.1–0.3 cm long, rarely subsessile. Mature buds ovoid to obovoid, 0.3–0.5 cm long, 0.2–0.3 cm wide, glaucous or green, scar present (outer operculum falling early), operculum conical to more or less rounded, stamens inflexed or irregularly flexed, anthers cuboid to globular, adnate, basifixed, dehiscing by lateral slits, style long and straight, stigma blunt, locules 3 or 4, the placentae each with 4 vertical rows of ovules. Flowers creamy white.Fruit on pedicels 0.1–0.3(0.5) cm long, rarely sessile, obconical narrowing slightly at the top, thin-walled, 0.2–0.5 cm long, 0.3–0.6 cm wide, disc narrow, descending or apparently absent, valves 3 or 4, exserted or at rim level, curving inwards.Seeds brown, lustrous, 1–2 mm long, ovoid and faintly angled to flattened-ovoid, dorsal surface shallowly reticulate, hilum ventral.Cultivated seedlings (measured at node 10): cotyledons oblong-reniform; stems square in cross-section, glaucous or non-glaucous; leaves always petiolate, opposite for 3 or 4 nodes then alternate, lanceolate, 5–12.5 cm long, 1–4.5 cm wide, dull grey-green.
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