Side buds curve away from the twig. The third bud scale is nine-tenths as long as the bud. The twigs are smooth and yellow to yellowish-green in color. Twigs are moderately stout and slightly angled. The pendant male flowers are borne in dense catkins and appear before the leaves.
Female flowers are also in catkins but have fewer flowers per cluster.
Seeds mature before the leaves. Eugenei' is a male clone and thus would not produce fruit. It is one of the most rapidly growing native Ohio trees, common in floodplains and swampy areas. This tree is distributed over the entire state and attains great size when growing along rich bottom lands and in major drainage valleys. In northwestern Ohio, the poplar, or cottonwood, is a common associate of forest trees such as elm, green ash, sycamore, silver maple, red oak, and swamp white oak.