Mallee to 7 m tall. Forming a lignotuber. Bark usually rough over most of the lower stem, sometimes extending to the larger branches, fibrous, light grey to brown; upper stem mostly smooth-barked, smooth bark grey to brown to cream. Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): stems markedly glaucous and square in cross-section; juvenile leaves opposite and sessile, cordate, 5–10 cm long, 4–7 cm wide, glaucous. Adult leaves in the mature crown similar to juvenile leaves, opposite, sessile, cordate to ovate, bases amplexicaul to rounded, 5–10 cm long, 3–6 cm wide, concolorous, glaucous, side-veins greater than 45° to midrib but venation often obscured by the white surface wax, moderately to densely reticulate, oil glands intersectional and island. Inflorescence axillary unbranched, peduncles 0.8–1.5 cm long, buds 7, 9 or 11, pedicellate, pedicels 0.4–0.6 cm long. Mature buds ovoid (1.2–1.7 cm long, 0.6–0.8 cm wide), markedly glaucous, scar present, operculum beaked (c. 0.8 cm long), stamens irregularly flexed, anthers versatile, globoid, style long, stigma tapered, locules 3 or 4, the placentae each with 4 vertical ovule rows. Flowers yellow. Fruit pedicellate, pedicels 0.3–0.6 cm long, cup-shaped to barrel-shaped, glaucous, 0.8–1.1 cm long, 0.8–1 cm wide, disc descending obliquely, valves 3 or 4, valve tips strongly exserted due to fragile style remnants. Seeds brown, 2–3 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 square in cross-section, glaucous; leaves opposite, sessile, cordate to ovate, 2.5–5 cm long, 1.7–3.5 cm wide, glaucous.
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