Bark: Light brown or dark brown, scarcely furrowed.
Twigs: Slender, smooth, reddish-brown to dark gray; pith star-shaped in cross-section; leaf scars alternate but crowded near the tip, half-round, usually slightly elevated, with several bundle traces.
Buds: Pointed, reddish-brown or dark gray, smooth, up to ⅛ inch long.
Leaves: Alternate, simple; blades divided more than half-way to the middle into 5-7 bristle-tipped lobes, dark green, shiny and more or less smooth on the upper surface, paler and with tufts of hairs along the veins on the lower surface, up to 7 inches long and 4 inches broad; leafstalk up to 2 inches long, slender, usually smooth.
Flowers: Staminate and pistillate borne separately, but on the same tree, appearing when the leaves begin to unfold, minute, without petals, the staminate in slender, drooping catkins, the pistillate in groups of 1-3.
Fruit: Acorns 1-4 together, with or without stalks, the nut hemispherical, up to ½ inch across, pale brown, frequently with darker lines, enclosed less than ¼ by the cup, the cup thin, saucer-shaped, reddish-brown, finely hairy.
Wood: Hard, heavy, coarse-grained, pale brown.
Uses: General construction, fuel, fence posts, ornamental.
Habitat: Moist soil; in floodplain woods; along streams; edges of swamps and ponds.
Range: Massachusetts across to southeastern Iowa, south to northeastern Oklahoma, east to northern Virginia.