Tree to 40 m tall; bark rough to small branches, stringy. Juvenile leaves petiolate, opposite for few pairs then alternate, ovate, undulate, scabrous above and below for many nodes, to 10.5 cm long, 6 cm wide, green; adult leaves petiolate, broadly lanceolate to lanceolate, 7.5–12 cm long, 1.2–2.5 cm wide, concolorous, glossy, green; reticulation sparse, with numerous island oil glands. Inflorescences axillary, unbranched; peduncles to 1.2 cm long, 11–15-flowered; buds more or less sessile, fusiform, to 0.6 cm long, 0.4 cm diam., no scar (single operculum); operculum acutely conical; stamens irregularly flexed; anthers dorsifixed, reniform; ovules in 2 vertical rows; flowers white. Fruit sessile, hemispherical to truncate-globose, to 0.7 cm long, 1 cm diam.; disc descending; valves 4, rim level; seed dark brown, glossy, smooth, pyramidal but distorted by one curved face, hilum terminal. Flowers Sep.–Jan.
VVP, GipP, CVU, NIS, EGL, EGU, HSF, HNF, Strz, MonT, HFE, VAlp. Also NSW. A common stringybark of coastal ranges east and north-east from Melbourne. There is a markedly disjunct occurrence north of the Great Dividing Range, south-west of Tallangatta.
On near-coastal sands in Gippsland it can have a mallee habit and quite large fruits which may lead to confusion with E. baxteri, however, the coppice growth, which is scabrous for many nodes is diagnostic for E. globoidea.
