Other Name: White Elm.
Growth Form: Large tree up to 80 feet tall; trunk diameter up to 4 feet; crown broadly rounded or sometimes flat-topped, usually with drooping branchlets.
Bark: Light or dark gray, furrowed, at maturity breaking into thin plates.
Twigs: Brown, slender, smooth or sparsely hairy, often zigzag; leaf scars alternate, half-round, each with 3 bundle traces.
Buds: Broadly ovoid, reddish-brown, smooth or sparsely hairy, up to one-fourth inch long.
Leaves: Alternate, simple; blades oval to elliptic, pointed at the tip, strongly asymmetrical at the base, up to 6 inches long and about half as wide, coarsely doubly toothed along the edges, the upper surface dark green and smooth, the lower surface pale and either softly hairy or smooth; leafstalks very short, usually yellow.
Flowers: In drooping clusters of 3-4, appearing before the leaves unfold, greenish-red, hairy, small.
Fruit: Oval, winged fruits up to one-half inch long, hairy along the edges, each wing notched at the top and surrounding a single central seed.
Wood: Heavy, strong, pale brown.
Uses: Flooring, farm implements, shipbuilding; frequently planted as an ornamental and as a shade tree, but greatly diminished in number by the Dutch Elm disease and phloem necrosis.