Size: tree, 60-80' average height at maturity
Buds: grayish pubescent, terminal absent, blunt-tipped, 2-3 overlapping scales
Leaves: deciduous, alternate, 2-6" long, about the same width, simple, suborbicular, abruptly acuminate tips, margins doubly serrate, sometimes with suggestion of lobes, shiny dark green on top, silvery tomentose below, yellow in fall
Twigs: tomentose tips, inconspicuous lenticels and raised leaf scars
Flowers: monoecious, yellowish white, pendulous clusters of 7-10 flowers, each subtended by a bract, fragrant, bloom late June to early July
Fruit: small hard whitish pubescent nutlets on a pedicel subtended by a persistent large thin bract
Bark: smooth, light gray, almost beech-like, ridged, gray-brown on older wood
