The leaf base is acute, or narrowed, toward the base. Its foliage makes it easy to distinguished it from the Chinese and European chestnuts. The showy male flowers are long, slender, whitish catkins opening in midsummer. The fruit is a prickly bur which opens at the first frost, or earlier, and drops two to three shiny, brown, sweet, edible nuts. These were harvested and sold earlier in this century.
Terminal buds are absent.
Twigs and buds are brown and glabrous. Bark becomes broken into light gray, broad, flat ridges which often have a tendency toward a spiral course around the trunk. The wood is light, soft, not strong, coarse-grained, and very durable in contact with the soil. These properties make the wood particularly valuable for posts, poles, and crossties as well as for light building construction. The wood is rich in tannin.