154 



SYLVA AMERICANA, 



FRAXINUS. 



Polygamia Dioecia. Linn. Jasminece. Juss. Tonic, secernant, stimulant. 



White Ash. Fraxinu's Americana. 



The White Ash is one of 

 the most interesting among 

 the American species for the 

 qualities of its wood, and the 

 most remarkable for the 

 rapidity of its growth and 

 for the beauty of its foliage. 

 It abounds in New Bruns- 

 wick and Canada ; in the 

 ! United States it is most 

 multiplied north of the river 

 Hudson, and is more com- 

 mon in Genessee, than in 

 the southern part of New- 

 York, in New Jersey and 

 Pennsylvania. A cold cli- 

 mate seems most congenial 

 to its nature. It is every where called White Ash, probably 

 from the color of its bark, by which it is easily distinguished. 

 The situations most favorable to this tree are the banks of rivers 

 and the edges and surrounding acclivities of swamps. 



The white ash sometimes attains the height of 80 feet with a 

 diameter of three feet, and is one of the largest trees of the 

 United States. The trunk is perfectly straight and often undivided 

 to the height of more than 40 feet. On large stocks the bark is 

 deeply furrowed, and divided into small squares from one to three 

 inches in diameter. The leaves are twelve or fourteen inches long, 

 opposite and composed of three or four pair of leaflets surmounted 

 by an odd one. The leaflets, which are borne by short petioles, 

 are three or four inches long, about two inches broad, oval- 

 acuminate, rarely denticulated, of a delicate texture and an 



PLATE XXIX. 

 Fig. 1. A leaflet. Fig. a. The seed. 



