It received the name from Colonists because it was used by American Indians for arrow shafting. The tree seems to prefer or just grow better in wet to moist soils and I sometimes find it making thickets near small streams or swampy areas. As the tree grows it starts to lean over and sometimes as it grows larger even leans over to touch the ground. This make identification easier when traveling through the woods. The leaves of the tree are round with saw tooth edges and come to a point on the tips and can vary in size even on the same tree.
Leaves are a dull medium green on top and are a pale green underneath with small hairs.
The natural range of this tree is from parts of Maine, west to Indiana, south to Louisiana and Southern Georgia. One other way you can help identify this tree is when the bark is removed it produces a smell similar to melon sometimes but never the real green smell some plants have. The raw shafts can be gathered anytime of year, but like any other woods, it does much better when gathered when the sap is down. They still can be gathered in the summer, but some will be lost to splitting at the ends or near small knots. The fresh young sprouts of the correct size can be gathered or the branches of larger trees can be gathered for shafting.