Deciduous tree 15-20 (less often up to 24) m high, pyramidal outstretched crown.
The bark is smooth, yellow-gray from the second year. The buds are dark red in winter. Leaves with five or seven lobes, 8-15 cm wide, green on both sides, cut slightly or to the middle, edges smooth; the underside is not pubescent or has soft hairs on the main vessels. The blades are triangular and evenly pointed. The petioles are long. Autumn coloring from yellow to red.
The flowers are yellow, on peduncles 4-6 cm, collected in racemes, appearing simultaneously or earlier than the leaves. Usually on one tree there are only male or only female flowers.
The fruit is a paired lionfish, an elongated wing 1-1.5 cm wide and 3-3.5 cm long, including a flat nut 1-1.3 cm long and 8-10 mm wide. The wings are located in the lionfish at different angles. Blooms in April - May, bears fruit in September.
It grows singly or in groups on mountain slopes, ridges, foothills and river valleys among cedar-broad-leaved forests, in oak-hornbeam, oak-black birch and other mixed forests, less often in spruce-cone-leaved forests.
Undemanding to soil. Prefers fresh, drained, humified, slightly acidic and neutral soils of sandy and loamy composition.