Leaves oblong-lanceolate, long-pointed and acuminate at apex, unsymmetrically rounded or cuneate or obliquely cuneate at base, often falcate, entire or furnished with a few teeth near the apex or serrate (var. Smallii Sarg.), thin, smooth, glabrous or rarely rough above, light green on both surfaces, 2½′—5′ long and ¾′—1½′ wide, with a narrow yellow midrib, slender veins arcuate and united near the margins, and inconspicuous reticulate veinlets; petioles slender, glabrous, ¼′—½′ in length. Flowers on slender glabrous pedicels; calyx divided into five ovate-lanceolate glabrous or puberulous scarious lobes furnished at apex with tufts of long white hairs. Fruit on glabrous pedicels shorter or slightly longer than the petioles, ripening in September, short-oblong to ellipsoid or obovoid, orange-red or yellow, ¼′ in diameter; nutlet slightly rugose.
A tree, 60°—80° high, with a trunk 2°—3° in diameter, spreading or pendulous branches forming a broad head, and slender branchlets light green, glabrous or pubescent when they first appear, and during their first winter bright reddish brown, rather lustrous and marked by oblong pale lenticels and narrow elevated horizontal leaf-scars showing the ends of three fibro-vascular bundles; often much smaller. Winter-buds ovoid, pointed, 1/16′—⅛′ long, with chestnut-brown puberulous scales. Bark ½′—⅔′ thick, pale gray and covered with prominent excrescences. Wood soft, not strong, close-grained, light yellow, with thick lighter-colored sapwood; commercially confounded with the wood of Celtis occidentalis and its varieties, and used for the same purposes.
Distribution. Coast of Virginia to the Everglades Keys of southern Florida, through the Gulf states to the valley of the lower Rio Grande in Nuevo Leon, and through eastern Texas, Arkansas and Missouri to eastern Oklahoma to the valley of the Washita River (Zarvin County) and to Kiowa County, eastern Kansas, central Tennessee and Kentucky, and to southern Illinois and Indiana; in Bermuda.
Often planted as a shade and street tree in the valley of the Mississippi River and in Texas.
An arborescent form from the rocky banks of the Nueces River, western Texas, with shorter and thicker leaves is distinguished as var. brachyphylla Sarg.; and a small shrubby form with oblong-ovate cordate leaves and dark purplish fruit covered with a glaucous bloom, growing in deep sand in Callihan County, Texas, has been described as var. anomala Sarg. An Arizona form is
Celtis laevigata var. brevipes Sarg.
Celtis brevipes S. Wats.
Leaves ovate, acuminate, unsymmetrically rounded or cuneate at base, entire or rarely furnished with occasional teeth, glabrous, dark green and smooth on the upper surface, yellow-green on the lower surface, with small clusters of pale hairs in the axils of the slender veins, and inconspicuous reticulate veinlets, 1½′—2′ long, ¾′—1′ wide; petioles slender, puberulous, ¼′—⅓′ in length. Fruit on glabrous pedicels shorter or slightly longer than the petioles, short-oblong, canary yellow, about ¼′ long.
A small tree with slender glabrous red-brown branchlets.