Size: tree, 60-80' average height at maturity
Buds: glabrous, greenish or brownish, smaller than those of T. americana, absent terminal, blunt-tipped with 2-3 overlapping scales
Leaves: deciduous, alternate, size 1.5-4" long, about the same width, simple, suborbicular, with abruptly acuminate tip and sharp, fine serrations, dark shiny green, sometimes yellow in fall
Twigs: greenish or brownish, slender, slightly raised leaf scars
Flowers: monoecious, yellowish, fragrant, in pendulous 2-3" clusters of 5-7 flowers, bloom in late June to early July, flowers subtended by bract
Fruit: small hard nutlets on pedicel subtended by persistent large thin bract
Bark: gray to brown, with ridges and furrows on older trunks
