The larger, plumper buds further down the twig are mixed buds and contain both floral and leaf initials. The trunk is fluted with irregular ridges extending up and down the tree. The bark is light gray to dark bluish-gray in color and sometimes marked with dark bands extending horizontally on the trunk. The tree is commonly multi-stemmed as a result of damage from the hornbeam borer that kills the tree to the soil line, where its stump sprouts and regenerates another tree. The flowers are born in catkins.
Female flowers have small, leaflike, three-lobed, green scales.
When it falls, it is attached to the leaflike scale which acts as a wing and aids its distribution by the wind. The wood is tough, close-grained, heavy, and strong. It is sometimes selected for use for levers, tool handles, wooden cogs, mallets, wedges, etc. The tree is of little commercial importance and often occupies space in the woods that should be utilized by more valuable kinds of trees if the trees are being grown for timber.