The glossy light-green to green adult leaves are arranged alternately and have an oval to lanceolate or falcate shape, and have a leaf blade that is 90 to 180 millimetres (3.5 to 7.1 in) long and 1.5 to 3 cm (0.59 to 1.18 in) wide.

The tree flowers between January and April with white to cream inflorescences that form in the leaf axils and are not branched.

The botanist Jean-Baptiste Leschenault assembled the type collection at the Vasse River near Geographe Bay during 1802, while serving with the Baudin expedition.

Tuart forest was common on the Swan coastal plain until the valuable trees were felled for export and displaced by the urban development around Perth.

Remnants of tuart forest occur in state reserves and parks; the tree has occasionally been introduced to other regions of Australia and overseas.

The fruits have an obconic to upside-down bell shape and sometimes have two longitudinal ridges that extend from the pedicel partly along the length.

[10] The upper side of the seed is wrinkled or marked with thin parallel streaks and sometimes has a protruding ridge around the circumference.

[12] The species was formally described by the botanist Augustin Pyramus de Candolle in the third volume of his Prodromus Systematis Naturalis Regni Vegetabilis published in 1828.

[2][13] The botanist Jean-Baptiste Leschenault assembled the type collection at the Vasse River near Geographe Bay during 1802,[14] while serving with the Baudin expedition.

[14] In 1939, William Blakely and Henry Steedman described two varieties of this species in Contributions from the New South Wales National Herbarium, but the names are listed as synonyms by the Australian Plant Census.

[3] The epithet gomphocephala is derived from gomphos, meaning 'club', and kephale, 'head',[16] describing the rounded and overlapping shape of the operculum.

[15] Outlying patches of the tree are found to the north of Yanchep as far as Geraldton and further inland where rivers intersect the range.

[4] A large stand of Tuart is found adjacent to the Jurien Bay cemetery and is listed with the Heritage Council of Western Australia.

[24][25] The heartwood is a pale yellow-brown colour with a fine texture and a highly interlocked grain, close and twisted, almost curled back.

[6] The colour of the product is described as light and creamy and it candies quickly to become hard and dry if properly matured in the hive.

[6][27] The informal definition of a giant tree is that it must be significantly larger than other species and exceed 100 m3 (3,500 cu ft) in volume.

[15] Experimental cultivation in the 1930s of the species identified that it was able to grow in areas of low rainfall, as little as 13 inches (330 mm) per annum.

A 2009 survey of endophytic fungi on woody species at two tuart woodlands – sampling acacia Acacia cochlearis, A. rostellifera, the sheoak Allocasuarina fraseriana, peppermint Agonis flexuosa, Banksia grandis, sandalwood Santalum acuminatum and eucalypts jarrah Eucalyptus marginata and tuart – found around three quarters of isolates were taxa of the family Botryosphaeriaceae.

[30] The Tuart Woodlands and Forests of the Swan Coastal Plain were listed in 2019 as critically endangered according to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999.

[20] Tuart forest persisted in situ through the last glacial maximum, and extended its range thirty kilometres to the west as the coastline became exposed by lower sea levels.

The sap-sucking pest has infested non-native Eucalyptus plantations, including E. gomphocephala, in Southern Africa and Europe.

A wide variety of insects have been recorded in mass flowerings of jarrah/tuart woodlands, including 84 different species such as ants, bees, wasps, flies, beetles, moths, butterflies and cockroaches.

[15][36] The Swan River Colony's first sawmill was established in 1833, amongst tuart forest at the foot of Mount Eliza in Kings Park.

[38] The British Admiralty received loads of this timber at Portsmouth and Chatham during the 1850–60s, exported from Wonnerup and Bunbury; an inspection by Thomas Laslett also gave the most favourable possible assessment.

The land made available by the destruction of forests was recommended by the state's Department of Agriculture in the 1890s for the development of orchards, producing apples, grapes, pears, peaches and nectarines.

The timber produced in the state forest during the early twentieth century was used for railway carriages, greatly reducing costs by replacing steel with tuart and wandoo.

[15] The species was surveyed in 1882 by Surveyor General Malcolm Fraser,[41] his map showing them occurring at an area measuring 130,000 ha (320,000 acres).

They were well known to the settlers of the Swan River Colony; the first road from the port to the capital passed through what they named as Claremont Tuart Forest.

The 1903-04 Royal Commission on Forestry, hearing evidence from sawmiller and government member H. J. Yelverton, reported just over 40,000 ha (99,000 acres) remained, and that reduced tonnage from areas where "prime trees", those over 0.8 m (2 ft 7 in) in diameter, were mostly harvested had not been found.

This eventually took the form of a regulation on export of the tuart, although this was to reserve the timber for its biggest consumer, the state's railway system.