[3] It has rough, evenly tessellated bark, lance-shaped leaves, oval to pear-shaped flower buds arranged on a branching peduncle and urn-shaped fruit.

Corymbia eremaea is usually a small to mallee-like tree that typically grows to a height of 10 m (33 ft) and forms a lignotuber.

Young plants and coppice regrowth have dull green, lance-shaped leaves the same shade of green on both sides, linear to narrow lance-shaped, 20–110 mm (0.79–4.33 in) long, 7–21 mm (0.28–0.83 in) wide and arranged in more or less opposite pairs.

[7] In 1995 Ken Hill and Lawrie Johnson changed the name to Corymbia eremaea in the journal Telopea.

[6][8] The specific epithet (eremaea) refers to the occurrence of the species in desert areas.