Trees to 25 m tall, deciduous. Branchlets brown, glabrous. Petiole 2.5-5 cm, glabrescent; leaf blade ovate to elliptic, 10-20 × 7-10 cm, abaxially greenish and glabrous or floccose, adaxially dark green, base cuneate, margin with 5-7 lobes on each side ending in 10-30 awns, apex acuminate. Female inflorescence ca. 1 cm; cupules solitary or 2 or 3. Cupule cupular, 1-1.2 × 1.5-1.8 cm, enclosing 1/4-1/3 of nut; bracts triangular, crowded, glabrous. Nut brownish, narrowly ellipsoid, 2-2.5 × ca. 1.5 cm, pubescent, glabrescent, apex rounded; scar flat or slightly impressed; stylopodium present. Fl. Apr-May, fr. Sep of following year.

Cultivated. Beijing Shi, Liaoning, Shandong [native to North America]