A damage tolerant microstructure for a lamellar alloy, such as a lamellar TiAl alloy, is provided in accordance with the present invention. The alloy comprises a matrix and a plurality of grains or lamellar colonies, a portion of which exhibit a nonplanar morphology within said matrix. Each of the lamellar colonies contains a multitude of lamella with irregularly repeating order. The TiAl platelets have a triangular (octahedral) unit cell and stack with twins. The ₂Ti₃Al platelets are irregularly interspersed. The unit cell for ₂Ti₃Al is hexagonal. Each of the layers has a curved, nonplanar structure for resisting crack formation and growth.