Trees , 24-27 m; crowns rounded to narrow. Bark light brown with shallow ridges and large plates. Wood hard. Branches often with opposite corky wings; twigs reddish brown, pubescent. Buds brown, apex acute, pubescent; scales dark brown, shiny, glabrous. Leaves: petiole ca. 1.5 mm, pubescent. Leaf blade ovate to elliptic, 2.5-5 × 1.3-2 cm, base oblique or rounded to cuneate, margins crenate to doubly serrate, apex obtuse; surfaces abaxially softly pubescent, adaxially harshly pubescent. Inflorescences fascicles, 2-5-flowered, 0.5 cm; pedicel 0.75-1 cm. Flowers: calyx deeply lobed, more than 1/2 its length, lobes 6-9, hairy; stamens 5-6, anthers reddish purple; stigmas white, pubescent, exserted and spreading. Samaras green to tan, elliptic to oval, ca. 0.75-1. cm, pubescent, margins ciliate, cilia ca. 0.5 mm. Seeds somewhat thickened, not inflated. 2 n = 28.

Flowering late summer-early fall. Stream banks, low woods, low hillsides, roadsides, waste places; sometimes shade trees; 0-500 m; Ark., Fla., La., Miss., Okla., Tenn., Tex.; n Mexico.

Except for the Suwanee River valley in Florida, Ulmus crassifolia has not been found east of Webster County, Mississippi. It hybridizes with U . serotina .