Blue Beech is an understory tree with an attractive rounded shape. It grows about as wide as it does tall and features distinctive muscle-like, smooth gray bark and fluted trunks. Its dense foliage provides excellent visual interest, emerging reddish-purple in spring, turning dark green in summer, and changing to bright yellow, orange, or red in fall.

Blue Beech is naturally found in moist to seasonally wet floodplains, along streams or riverbanks, and in mixed hardwood forests, but it is highly adaptable and can tolerate a wide variety of growing conditions. It is excellent as an ornamental accent due to its year-long visual interest. It is very slow growing and low branched.