Broadly ovate with 3 or 5 shallow broad short pointed lobes. Wavy edges with scattered large teeth. 5 or 3 main veins from notched base. Bright green above, paler beneath. Turning brown in autumn.
Tree grows so large that it has to shed it's bark almost continuously as it is growing.
Bark actually flakes off. In winter against a stormy sky it looks wonderfully living, amidst all the appearances of lifelessness in other deciduous trees. Yet they produce the curious fruits that have given the tree the name of Buttonwood - hanging balls that persist on the tree over winter and then break up into fluff, when the fruitlets are borne away upon the down and the seeds thus widely distributed both by wind and water. The base of the trunk is dark brown, and deeply furrowed into broad, scaly ridges. May. Male and female clusters on separate twigs.