Growth Form: Medium tree up to 75 feet tall; trunk diameter up to 2½ feet; crown broadly rounded and often irregular; trunk straight, columnar.
Bark: Brown, thin, separating into small, platy scales or shallow ridges and fissures.
Twigs: Slender, grayish or orange-brown, smooth, usually with lenticels; leaf scars alternate, shield-shaped, scarcely elevated, with usually several bundle traces.
Buds: Narrow, slender, pointed, covered by a dense, bright yellow coat of glandular dots and small hairs, up to ¾ inch long.
Leaves: Alternate, pinnately compound, with usually 7-9 leaflets; leaflets lance-shaped, usually curved, long-pointed at the tip, tapering or rounded at the base, toothed along the edges, yellow-green and smooth on the upper surface, somewhat lighter and usually hairy on the lower surface, up to 6 inches long and usually less than half as wide.
Flowers: Staminate and pistillate borne separately, but on the same tree, appearing after the leaves have begun to unfold, minute, without petals, the staminate in slender, drooping catkins, the pistillate in groups of 1 or 2.
Fruit: More or less spherical, up to 1¼ inches in diameter, the husk thin, yellowish, with 4 distinct ridges extending about halfway down, the nut somewhat flattened, the seed very bitter.
Wood: Heavy, hard, strong, dark brown.
Uses: Fuel, fence posts.
Habitat: Bottomland woods; dry hills; along roads.