The bark is dark gray, fissured, and closely held on young trees. Mature bark separates into narrow, shaggy plates on older trunks, but even these plates are more tightly held than shagbark and shellbark hickories. This character give rise to the name of false-shagbark hickory. Leaflets sharply taper at the apex and are finely serrate, or toothed, along the margin. Flowers are monoecious.
Male flowers are catkins and showy, while the female flowers are green and inconspicuous.
Fruits are light brown and scaly when ripe. The husk is thin and is difficult to split. The nut is brownish in color with a small, sweet kernel. This tree is found on lower slopes of southeastern Ohio rather than the ridges where the pignut hickory is found. Red hickory is particularly common on southern and western exposures.