CHAP. LXXV. OLEA‘CER. FRA’XINUS. 1221 
the oak, and sooner receives impression from the winds and frost. Instead 
of contributing its tint, therefore, in the wane of the year,among the many- 
coloured offspring of the woods, it shrinks from the blast, drops its leaf, and, 
in every scene where it predominates, leaves wide blanks of desolated boughs, 
amidst foliage yet fresh and verdant. Before its decay, we sometimes see its 
leaf tinged with a fine yellow, well contrasted with the neighbouring greens. But 
this is one of nature’s casual beauties : much oftener, its leaf decays in a dark, 
muddy, unpleasing tint; and yet, sometimes, notwithstanding this early loss 
of its foliage, we see the ash, in a sheltered situation, when the rains have 
been abundant, and the season mild, retain its green (a light pleasant green) 
when the oak and the elm in its neighbourhood have put on their autumnal 
attire.’ (For. Scen., p. 37.) 
“Tt is in mountain scenery that the ash appears to peculiar advantage; 
waving its slender branches over some precipice which just affords it soil 
sufficient for its footing, or springing between crevices of rock; a happy 
emblem of the hardy spirit which will not be subdued by fortune’s scantiness. 
It is likewise a lovely object by the side of some crystal stream, in which it 
views its elegant pendent foliage, bending, Narcissus-like, over its own charms.” 
(Strutt’s Sylva, 8vo edit., p. 79.) 
“ The beauty of the roots of the ash,” Gilpin observes, “ is of a pictu- 
resque nature. They are often finely veined, and will take a good polish. 
Dr. Plot, in his Natural History of Oxfordshire (chap. vi. § 80.), speaks of 
certain knotty excrescences in the ash, called the brusca and mollusca, which, 
when cut and polished, are very beautiful. He particularly mentions a dining- 
table made of the latter, which represents the exact figure of a fish. With 
regard to the exact figure of animals and other objects, which we meet with 
both in stone and wood, I cannot say I should value them much as objects of 
beauty. They may be whimsical and curious; but, in my opinion, the roots 
and veins of wood and stone are much more beautiful when they are 
wreathed in different fantastic forms, than when they seem to aim at any 
exact figures. In the former case, they leave the imagination at liberty to 
play among them, which is always a pleasing exercise to it; in the latter, they 
are, at best, awkward and unnatural likenesses, which often disgust the pic- 
turesque eye, and always please it less than following its own fancy, and 
picking out resemblances of its own.” (For. Scen., p. 38.) 
The wreathed Fascia in the Ash Tree is likewise of the picturesque kind, and 
consists of a sort of excrescence, which is sometimes found on a leading branch, 
and is called by this name. “ The fasciated branch is twisted and curled into a 
very beautiful form; which form it probably takes, as Dr, Plot supposes, from 
too quick an ascent of the sap (see Nat. Hist. of Ozf., ch. vi. § 82.) ; or,as other 
naturalists imagine, from the puncture of some insect in the tender twig, 
which diverts the sap from its usual channel, and makes the branch monstrous. 
The wreathed fascia is sometimes found in other wood, in the willow particu- 
larly, and in the holly; but most commonly it is an excrescence of the ash. 
T have a fasciated branch of ash, found in the woods of Beaulieu, in the New 
Forest, which is most elegantly twisted in the form of a crosier; and I have 
seen a holly, also, twisted like a ram’s horn. We have this appearance some- 
times in asparagus.” (Id., p. 39. 
The Spray of the Ash (fig. 1046.) “is very different from that of the oak, the 
elm, or the beech. As the boughs of the ash are less complex than those 
of the oak, so is its spray. Instead of the thick intermingled bushiness 
which the spray of the oak exhibits, that of the ash is much more simple, 
running in a kind of irregular parallels. The main stem holds its course, 
forming at the same time a beautiful sweep; but the spray does not 
divide, like that of the oak, from the extremity of the last year’s shoot, 
but springs from the sides of it. Two shoots spring out, opposite each other ; 
and each pair in a contrary direction, Rarely, however, do both the shoots 
of either side come to maturity: one of them is commonly lost as the 
tree increases, or, at least, makes no appearance in comparison with the 
4L 4 
