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Ashes and the Fringe Tree — Part 2

Red Ash (Fraxinus Pennsylvanica, Marsh.)--A small, spreading tree, 40 to 60 feet high, with irregular, compact head of twiggy branches. Bark reddish, closely furrowed, scaly; young twigs pubescent. Buds small, dark brown, nodes close together. Leaves 10 to 12 inches long, of 7 to 9 leaflets, lanceolate, coarsely serrate, on short stalks, smooth, yellow-green above, silvery pubescence on petioles and leaf linings; yellow in fall. Flowers, May, with leaves; dioecious, in hairy panicles; pistillate greenish, inconspicuous. Fruit slender, clustered keys, 1 to 2 inches long, on hairy stems; wing 1 inch long and extending half way around the body. Preferred habitat, moist soil near streams or lakes. Distribution, New Brunswick to Ontario and the Black Hills in Dakota; south to Florida, Alabama and Nebraska. Uses: Inferior to white ash in all ways. Often planted in eastern United States for shade and ornament.

The red ash thrives best in the Northeastern States, especially in Pennsylvania. West of the Alleghanies it is an inferior tree. Its lumber is of poor quality compared with white ash, but being of the same colour it is often substituted for the latter by unscrupulous lumber dealers.

The common name of this species probably refers to the red inner layer of the outer bark of the branches. This trait alone is not a distinguishing one, however, for white ash sometimes shows the same character. The red ash has velvety down that invests its new shoots. Winter and summer, this sign never fails. The tree has slimmer twigs and branches than most of the ashes, and crowds its buds and twigs much more closely. The silky leaf linings lighten and soften the yellow-green foliage mass. Red-ash seeds are extremely slender, and vary in size and form, the most graceful in outline of all the darts the various ash trees bear. Lingeringly the tree gives up its seeds in winter. A breeze strong enough to tear off a few from the cluster will carry them a considerable distance. The heavy body or seed end of a key pitches downward, but the thin wing gives the wind a chance to lift it. So on its dainty sail the seed is borne away to plant an ash far from the parent tree, if by chance it fall in good ground. It is easy to understand why ash trees always grow scattered here and there through the woods. Go out on a winter day when the wind blows a gale and see the pistillate tree launching its seeds. It is worth a journey and some discomfort to see it.

Green Ash (Fraxinus lanceolata, Borkh.)--A handsome, round-headed tree, 50 to 60 feet high, with slender spreading branches and grey twigs. Bark grey, furrowed, branches smooth. Wood heavy, hard, strong, brown, coarse grained, brittle. Buds rusty brown, very small, blunt. Leaves smooth, 5 to 9 leaflets on short stalks; ovate or lanceolate, acuminate at apex, sharply serrate, bright green on both sides, lustrous above. Flowers, April to May, before leaves, dioecious. Fruit in thick clusters, 1 1/2 inches long, oblanceolate, body round. Preferred habitat, rich soil on banks of streams. Distribution, Lake Champlain to Florida; west to Utah, Arizona and Texas. Uses: A beautiful shade tree, especially adapted to the regions of scant rainfall. Lumber inferior to white ash, but used for the same purposes.

The green ash has its name from the dark, lustrous foliage which is intensified in its greenness by linings of the same colour, undimmed by any pubescence or pale bloom. The planter on the treeless stretches of Nebraska and Dakota loves this ash which grows with the commoner willow and cottonwood, where many trees utterly fail. A tree it is that not only lives but flourishes, showing that it suffers no homesick pangs for a greener land.

In the East, the green ash and the red are distinct enough, the latter having velvety, the former smooth, new shoots. In the western part of the Mississippi basin are ash trees that appear to be intermediate between the two species. Professor Sargent ranks the green ash as a variety of the red. Other authorities give it rank as a species; and it would not be surprising if further study of the intergrading forms would justify the tree student in making of these a distinct species, co-ordinate with the two older ones.

The most important thing, after all, about the green ash is that it is one of the agencies which is by degrees turning the Great American Desert into a land of shady roads and comfortable, protected homesteads. East of the Alleghanies the tree is little known. West of this range the tree is one among many shade trees where variety of planting is unlimited. In the West the tree comes into its own--and has few rivals. Here people have a sort of affectionate regard for it.