Tree or mallee to 6 m tall, rarely to 12 m. Forming a lignotuber.Bark rough to the smallest branches, tightly held, box-type, grey-brown to creamy brown and finely fissured.Branchlets lack oil glands in the pith; non-glaucous.Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): stems rounded in cross-section; juvenile leaves always petiolate, alternate, elliptical to ovate, 6.5–13 cm long, 3–6.5 cm wide, blue-green to grey-green. Adult leaves alternate, petioles 0.9–2.7 cm long; blade lanceolate to falcate, 7.8–18 cm long, 1–2.5(3.6) cm wide, base tapering to petiole, margin entire, apex pointed, concolorous, dull, light green to grey-green or blue-green, side-veins acute to greater than 45° to midrib, reticulation dense to very dense, intramarginal vein present, oil glands apparently absent.Inflorescence terminal compound but occasionally with some compound axillary inflorescences present also, peduncles rounded to angular, 0.3–1 cm long, buds 3 or 7 per umbel, pedicels (0)0.1–0.6 cm long. Mature buds obovoid to ovoid with four weak angles at base of bud, 0.7–0.8 cm long, 0.4–0.5 cm wide, scar present (outer operculum shed early), operculum bluntly conical to rounded, stamens irregularly flexed, all fertile, anthers adnate, basifixed, cuboid to ± globoid, dehiscing by lateral slits, style long and straight, stigma blunt, locules 4 or 5, the placentae each with 4 vertical ovule rows. Flowers creamy white.Fruit pedicels (0)0.1–0.7 cm long, cylindrical to ± barrel-shaped or, if shorter and slightly flared at the rim, then cupular to ± obconical, 0.6–1.1 cm long, 0.6–0.9 cm wide, isodiametric to longer than wide, valves 4 or 5, disc descending or sometimes level, if level then valves exserted otherwise valves at rim level.Seeds dark brown to black, 1.5–3.5 mm long, flattened-ovoid, dorsal surface shallowly reticulate, hilum ventral. Cultivated seedlings (measured at ca node 10): cotyledons reniform; stems rounded to square in cross-section; leaves always petiolate (petioles to 1 cm), opposite for 4 to 7 nodes then becoming alternate, ovate to lanceolate, 4.8–9.8 cm long, 1.4–3.9 cm long, base rounded to tapering, apex pointed dull, grey-green to green.
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