The lid of this species is remarkably smooth and polished, not wrinkled even in the dry specimen; it often breaks off a little above the base, leaving its thin lower part like a loose ring round the calyx. The leaves are lanceolate.
Lid conical, and, as well as the calyx, angular, and somewhat two-edged. Heads of flowers lateral, solitary, on flower-stalks.
The leaves are ovato-lanceolate, firm, astringent, but not very aromatic. We have seen no other species in which the flowers stand in little dense heads, each flower not being pedicellated so as to form an umbel. The lid is about as long as the calyx. Flower-stalk compressed, always solitary and simple.
The fruit of this species, standing on part of a branch whose leaves are fallen off, is figured in Mr. White's Voyage, page 226, along with the leaves of the next species.
