762 TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



scales keeled on the back, apiculate at the apex, and covered with thick brown to- 

 meutuni; calyx reduced to an obscure ring; corolla 0; stamens 2, with nearly sessile 

 broad connectives and dark purple oblong obtuse anther-cells; ovary oblong-ovate, 

 gradually narrowed into a short style divided at the apex into 2 light purple stig- 

 matic lobes generally maturing and withering before the anthers open. Fruit linear- 

 oblong to cuneate-oblong, V-2' long, with wings usujilly conspicuously emarginate at 

 the apex, surrounding the long flat body faintly many-rayed on both surfaces and 

 nearly 1' wide. 



A tree, usually 60-70 or occasionally 120 high, with a trunk 2-3 in diameter, 

 small spreading branches forming a slender head, and stout 4-angled hranchlets 

 more or less 4-winged between the nodes, dark orange color and covered with short 

 rufous pubescence when they first appear, becoming gray tinged with red in their 

 second year and marked by scattered pale lenticels and by the large elevated 

 obcordate leaf-scars displaying a lunate row of fibro-vascular bundle-scars, and in 

 their third year light brown or ashy gray and then gradually becoming terete. 

 Winter-buds terminal, about \' long, with 3 pairs of scales, those of the outer row 

 thick, rounded on the back, usually obscurely pinnate toward the apex, dark reddish 

 brown, slightly puberulous or often hoary-tomentose, partly covering the bud, those 

 of the inner rows strap-shaped, coated with light brown tomentura, often pinnate, 

 becoming I'-l^' long. Bark of the trunk ^'-f thick, irregularly divided into large 

 plate-like scales, the light gray surface slightly tinged with red separating into thin 

 minute scales. Wood heavy, hard, close-grained, rather brittle, light yellow 

 streaked with brown, with thick lighter colored sapwood of 80-90 layers of annual 

 growth; largely used for flooring and in carriage-building, and not often distin- 

 guished commercially from that of other species of the northern and middle states. 

 A blue dye is obtained by macerating the inner bark in water. 



Distribution. Rich limestone hills, occasionally descending into the bottom-lands 

 of fertile valleys; southern Michigan to central Missouri, and southward to eastern 

 Tennessee and northern Alabama, and through Iowa, Missouri, and northeastern 

 Arkansas; nowhere very abundant; of its largest size in the basin of the lower 

 Wabash River, Illinois, and on the western slopes of the Big Smoky Mountains, 

 Tennessee. 



Occasionally cultivated as an ornament of parks and gardens in the eastern United 

 States. 



4. Fraxinus Caroliniana, Mill. Water Ash. S-wamp Ash. 



Leaves 7'-12' long, with elongated stout terete pale petioles, and 5-7 long-stalked 

 ovate to oblong acute leaflets rarely rounded at the apex, wedge-shaped or some- 

 times rounded or subcordate at the base, and coarsely serrate, with acute incurved 

 teeth, or entire, when they unfold pilose above and more or iess hoary-tomentose 

 below, and at maturity thick and firm, S'-& long and 2-3' wide, dark green above, 

 paler or sometimes yellow-green and glabrous or pubescent beneath, especially 

 along the conspicuous midribs and the numerous arcuate veins connected by obscure 

 reticulate veinlets. Flowers dioecious, appearing in February and March in short 

 or ultimately elongated panicles inclosed in the bud by chestnut-brown pubescent 

 scales; staminate flower with a minute or nearly obsolete calyx, and 2 or sometimes 

 4 stamens, with slender filaments and linear apiculate anthers; calyx of the pistillate 

 flower cup-shaped, deeply divided and laciniate, as long as the ovary gradually nar- 

 rowed into an elongated slender style 2-lobed and stigmatic at the apex. Fruit 



