Mallee to 3 m tall. Forming a lignotuber. Bark smooth throughout, becoming granular for basal 0.5 m of trunk. Branchlets may have oil glands in the pith, or lack them. Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): not seen. Adult leaves alternate, petioles 0.8–2.5 cm long; blade ovate to lanceolate, 6–12.5 cm long, 1–3.5 cm wide, base tapering to petiole, margin entire, apex pointed, concolorous, glossy, mid-green, side-veins at an acute or wider angle to midrib, reticulation dense to very dense, intramarginal vein remote from margin, oil glands intersectional. Inflorescence axillary unbranched, peduncles stout, scarcely flattened to flattened, 1.2–3.5 cm long, buds (?7) to 15, sessile or rarely shortly pedicellate (pedicels to 0.3 cm long). Mature buds more or less fusiform, 1.7–2.3 cm long, 0.7–0.8 cm wide, scar present, operculum bluntly conical, a few outer stamens may be erect but most stamens inflexed to some degree, anthers oblong, versatile, dorsifixed, dehiscing by longitudinal slits, style long and straight, stigma blunt, locules usually 4, the placentae each with 4 or 6 vertical rows of ovules, or with 4 clear rows on the upper part of placenta and rows obscure on lower part of the placenta. Flowers pale yellow. Fruit usually sessile, rarely pedicels to 0.2 cm long, cylindrical to cupular, 1–1.5 cm long, 0.8–1.5 cm wide, disc descending vertically, valves usually 4, at rim level. Seeds black, 2–4 mm long, flattened-ovoid, slightly ridged ventrally, dorsal surface obscurely reticulate, a narrow marginal flange present on many but not all seeds, hilum ventral. Cultivated seedlings (measured at node 10): cotyledons bilobed, variable in degree of lobing; stems rounded in cross-section, smooth or slightly warty; leaves always petiolate, opposite for 2 or 3 nodes then alternate, ovate to orbicular or elliptical, 4.5–9 cm long, 3–5.5 cm wide, base tapering or truncate, dull, pale green.
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