Leaves oblong-lanceolate, gradually narrowed into a long slender point or acute at apex, narrowed and rounded, cordate, or wedge-shaped at the often unequal base, sharply serrate, with slender incurved callous teeth terminating at first in tufts of caducous hairs, when they unfold light bronze-green, glabrous above and coated below on the midrib and primary veins with long pale hairs, at maturity thin and extremely tough, dark dull yellow-green above, light yellow-green and furnished with conspicuous tufts of pale hairs in the axils of the veins below, 3′—5′ long, 1½′—2′ wide, with a slender midrib impressed and puberulous above, light yellow and pubescent below, and numerous slender veins forked near the margins; turning clear yellow before falling in the autumn; petioles hairy about ¼′ long; stipules rounded and often short-pointed at apex, ciliate on the margins with long pale hairs, hairy on the back, about ½′ long and ⅛′ wide. Flowers: staminate aments about ½′ long during their first season, with light red-brown rather loosely imbricated scales narrowed into a long slender point, becoming when the flowers open 2′ long, with broadly obovate scales rounded and abruptly contracted at apex into a short point, ciliate on the margins, green tinged with red above the middle, light brown toward the base; pistillate aments slender, about ¼′ long, on thin hairy stems, their scales lanceolate, acute, light green, often flushed with red above the middle, hirsute at the apex, decreasing in size from the lowest. Fruit: nuts ⅓′ long, about ⅛′ wide, rather abruptly narrowed below the apex, their involucres in clusters 1½′—2′ long and ⅔′—1′ wide, on slender hairy stems about 1′ in length. A tree, occasionally 50°—60° high, with a short trunk 2° in diameter, usually not more than 20°—30° tall, with a trunk 18′—20′ thick, long slender branches drooping at the ends and forming a round-topped or open head frequently 50° across, and slender, very tough branchlets, light green, coated with pale appressed hairs when they first appear, becoming light orange color and very lustrous by midsummer, glabrous, dark red-brown and lustrous during their first winter, and then growing gradually darker brown and losing their lustre; or covered like the petioles and peduncles with short erect glandular hairs (var. _glandulosa_ Sarg.). Winter-buds ovoid, light chestnut-brown, slightly puberulous, ¼′ long. Bark about ¼′ thick, broken into thick narrow oblong closely appressed plate-like light brown scales slightly tinged with red on the surface. Wood strong, hard, tough, durable, light brown tinged with red or often nearly white, with thick pale sapwood of 40—50 layers of annual growth; used for fence-posts, handles of tools, mallets, and other small articles.