Size: tree, 60-80' average height at maturity
Buds: blunt-tipped, 2-3 overlapping scales, usually reddish on vigorous wood, sometimes greenish, glabrous, shaped like a teardrop, absent terminal, laterals .25-.33"
Leaves: deciduous, alternate, 4-8" long and almost as wide, simple, broad ovate, abruptly acuminate, coarsely serrate with long pointed teeth, dark green above, paler below, sometimes yellow in fall
Twigs: reddish or greenish with conspicuous lenticels, sparsely branched, leaf scars large and raised
Flowers: monoecious, pale yellow, .5 wide, in 2-3" clusters of 5-15, bloom in the second half of June
Fruit: small hard nutlets on pedicel subtended by persistent large thin bract
Bark: gray to brown, in long narrow scaly ridges
