Gray-brown to brown and strongly ridged and furrowed. Young shoots downy, buff-colored. Pale yellow or creamy, of heavy, unpleasant odor, monecious, staminate in erect cylindrical catkins, pistillate on the lower part of the upper staminate catkins, usually 3 in a prickly symmetrical shell. Nuts large, often 1 in. across. Splits at maturity.
Fruits are edible.