[1] Fraxinus velutina is a small deciduous tree growing to 10 m tall, with a trunk up to 30 cm diameter.

The fruit is a samara 1.5–3 cm long, with an apical wing 4–8 mm broad.

[4] In Arizona, the range of Fraxinus velutina is centered on the Mogollon Rim, from the northwest in the Grand Canyon feeder canyons of southern Utah and Nevada, to the central-east White Mountains (Arizona) merging into the same mountainous area of western New Mexico, then to the Rio Grande valley south to trans-Pecos Texas.

In Arizona and northern Sonora it also is found in the sky island mountain ranges, the Madrean Sky Islands, and is found from central-southern Arizona, in the Sonoran Desert mountains, and the desert ranges south into northern Sonora and the very north of the Sierra Madre Occidental cordillera of Sonora and Chihuahua.

Scattered populations occur eastward through the Chihuahuan Desert regions of Chihuahua, Coahuila and Nuevo León.