It has smooth, grey, to cream or coppery bark that is shed in short ribbons or long strips, sometimes persistent on the lower trunk.

Flowering occurs mainly between November and March and the fruit is a woody cup-shaped, barrel-shaped or hemispherical capsule 3–6 mm (0.12–0.24 in) long wide.

[2][3][4][5] Eucalyptus leptophylla was first formally described in 1856 by the botanist Friedrich Anton Wilhelm Miquel from an unpublished description by Ferdinand von Mueller of a specimen collected by Hans Hermann Behr.

The description was published in a paper entitled Stirpes Novo-Hollandas a Ferd Mullero collectas determinavit in the journal Nederlandsch kruidkundig archief.

[9] Eucalyptus leptophylla is found in low woodland a mallee scrubland growing in white, yellow or red sand or red-brown loam over gravel or granite.