Tree to 25 m tall or rarely tall mallee; bark rough over whole trunk and to base of larger branches, pale grey, box-type; smooth, whitish above. Juvenile leaves petiolate, ovate to broadly lanceolate, to 15 cm long, 5 cm wide, dull, blue-green or green; adult leaves petiolate, alternate, broadly lanceolate to narrowly lanceolate, 8–13 cm long, 1.5–2.5 cm wide, concolorous, glossy, green; reticulation very dense, with scattered, intersectional oil glands. Inflorescences compound, terminal panicles; peduncles to 1 cm long, 7-flowered; buds pedicellate, clavate to ovoid, to 0.5–0.9 cm long, 0.4 cm diam., no scar; operculum conical; stamens irregularly flexed; anthers adnate, globoid; ovules in 4 vertical rows; flowers white. Fruit pedicellate, cupular, to 0.7 cm long, 0.5 cm diam.; disc descending; valves 3 or 4, rim level; seed brown, irregularly ovoid and slightly flattened, shallowly reticulate, hilum ventral. Flowers Mar.–May.
LoM, MuM, Wim, GleP, VVP, VRiv, RobP, MuF, GipP, Gold, CVU, GGr, DunT, NIS, HSF, HNF. Also SA, Qld, NSW. Occurs on relatively fertile plains in low rainfall areas, from the Wimmera east to south of Benalla and north into New South Wales, with scattered southern outliers near Bacchus Marsh, Melton, and Woodlands Historic Park at Greenvale.
Eucalyptus microcarpa is highly variable in shape and size of juvenile leaves, age at which coppice leaves turn from dull blue-green to glossy green, length of pedicels and length and shape of capsule. It intergrades with E. albens in the eastern and central parts of its Victorian distribution and populations with some attributes of both species occur, e.g. at Maryborough, Greytown State Forest, Benalla.
See note under Eucalyptus silvestris.
