Leaves nearly triangular to rhombic, long-pointed, coarsely doubly serrate with stout spreading glandular teeth except at the broad truncate or slightly cordate or cuneate base, thin and firm, dark green and lustrous and somewhat roughened on the upper surface early in the season by small pale glands in the axils of the conspicuous reticulate veinlets, 2½′—3′ long, 1½′—2½′ wide, with a stout yellow midrib covered with minute glands, and raised and rounded on the upper side, and obscure yellow primary veins; turning pale yellow in the autumn; petioles slender, terete, covered with black glands, often stained with red on the upper side, ¾′—1′ long; stipules broadly ovate, acute, membranaceous, light green slightly tinged with red. Flowers: staminate aments usually solitary or rarely in pairs, 1¼′—1½′ long, about ⅛′ thick during the winter, becoming 2½′—4′ long, with ovate acute apiculate scales; pistillate aments slender, as long as their glandular peduncles about ½′ in length, with ovate acute pale green glandular scales. Fruit: strobiles cylindric, pubescent, obtuse at apex, about ¾′ long and ⅓′ thick, pendant or spreading on slender stems; nut ellipsoidal to obovoid, acute or rounded at base, a little narrower than its obovate wing. A short-lived tree, 20°—30° or exceptionally 40° high, with a trunk rarely 18′ in diameter, short slender often pendulous more or less contorted branches usually clothing the stem to the ground and forming a narrow pyramidal head, and branchlets roughened by small raised lenticels, resinous-glandular when they first appear, gradually growing darker, bright yellow and lustrous before autumn like the young stems, bright reddish brown during their first winter, and ultimately white near the trunk; often growing in clusters of spreading stems springing from the stumps of old trees. Winter-buds ovoid, acute, pale chestnut-brown, glabrous, about ¼′ long. Bark about ⅓′ thick, dull chalky white on the outer surface, bright orange on the inner, close and firm, with dark triangular markings at the insertion of the branches, becoming at the base of old trees thicker, nearly black, and irregularly broken by shallow fissures. Wood light, soft, not strong, close-grained, not durable, light brown, with thick nearly white sapwood; used in the manufacture of spools, shoe-pegs and wood pulp, for the hoops of barrels, and largely for fuel.