Mallee to 7 m tall. Forming a lignotuber.Bark rough, fibrous, grey-brown, on lower trunks and large branches; smooth bark light grey or pale coppery brown or cream, often decorticating in ribbons or strips.Branchlets lacking oil glands in the pith, always glaucous.Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): stem usually square in cross-section, glaucous; juvenile leaves sessile, becoming shortly petiolate further up the stem, non-decurrent, opposite for few many pairs, becoming sub-opposite then alternate, ovate to broadly lanceolate or elliptical, usually glaucous.Adult leaves alternate, petiole 1–2.7 cm long; blade ovate to broadly lanceolate, 7–11 cm long, 2–5.4 cm wide, base usually rounded, sometimes tapering to petiole, concolorous, dull blue-grey to glaucous, side-veins at a wider angle than 45° to midrib, densely reticulate, intramarginal vein parallel to and usually well removed from the margin, oil glands intersectional.Inflorescence axillary unbranched, peduncles 0.9–2.2 cm long, buds usually 9 to 13 per umbel, rarely more than 15 per umbel, pedicellate, pedicels 0.5–0.9 cm long. Mature buds ovoid (1.2–2 cm long, 0.5–0.8 cm wide), glaucous, scar present, operculum beaked or horn-shaped (0.7–1.2 cm long), stamens irregularly flexed, anthers adnate or weakly versatile, globoid, dehiscing by broad lateral pores, style long, stigma tapered, locules 4, the placentae each with 4 vertical ovule rows. Flowers pale yellow.Fruit pedicellate, pedicels 0.2–0.6 cm long, cup-shaped to ± barrel-shaped to slightly urceolate, 0.7–1 cm long, 0.6–0.9 cm wide, disc descending obliquely, valves 4, enclosed but surmounted with prominently exserted but easily broken style remnants.Seeds grey to brown, 1.5–2.5 mm long, ovoid or flattened-ovoid, dorsal surface smooth, sometimes furrowed, hilum ventral.Cultivated seedlings (measured at node 10): cotyledons Y-shaped (bisected); stems square in cross-section, glaucous; leaves opposite, sessile, ovate to elliptical to broadly lanceolate, 3.7–8 cm long, 2–3.6 cm wide, base rounded to tapering, dull blue-grey to glaucous.
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