Tree up to 60 m tall with wide crown, bark is in youth smooth, yellow-grey, later stripping small scales, in old age stripping linear. Leaves are lancet, on other side silvery with red spots. The fruit are capsules. very small seeds in white fuzz. Shoots: Shoots are slightly squared, yellowish-brown, glabrous, just at the top gently hairy, shiny. Older shoots are dark brown. Leaf-scars are ascending and big. Natural range: North America, in our area introduced.