1222 ARBORETUM AND FRUTICETUM. PART III. 
other, which takes the lead. So that, notwithstanding 
this natural regularity of growth (so injurious to the 
picturesque beauty of the spruce fir, and some other 
trees), the ash never contracts the least disgusting for- 
mality from it. It may even receive great picturesque 
beauty ; for sometimes the whole branch is lost as 
far as one of the lateral shoots; and this occasions 
a kind of rectangular junction, which forms a beautiful 
contrast with the other spray, and displays an elegant 
mode of hanging to the branches of the tree. This 
points out another difference between the spray of the 









oak and that of the ash. The spray of the oak seldom shoots from the under 
sides of the branches ; and it is this chiefly which keeps the branches in a hori- 
zontal form. But the spray of the ash, often breaking out on the under side 
of the branch, forms very elegant pendent boughs.” (Jd., p. 112.) 
Disseminating Properties of the Ash. The ash, like the sycamore, from the 
wedge-like shape of its keys, or seeds, is liable to fix itself in the crevices of 
rocks, ruins, walls, and even in the clefts of old trees. On the piers of the 
entrance to Blenheim Park from Woodstock there were, in 1834, a syca- 
more established on one pier, and an ash on the other, each about 5 ft. high. 
(See Gard. Mag., vol. x. p. 99.) On the ruins of Sweetheart Abbey, in Dum- 
friesshire, there is a large tree of the common sycamore on the top of a wall, 
which, in 1806, when we last saw it, had sent down a fibrous root on the 
outside of the wall, completely exposed to the air, for the height of 10 ft, 
or 12 ft., till it reached the ground. This fibre soon afterwards acquired con- 
siderable thickness, and now constitutes, as we are informed, the main stem 
of the tree. A similar circumstance took place with a weeping willow, in 
the Botanic Garden of Carlsruhe, which will be hereafter mentioned; and 
the same thing happens not unfrequently with the oak. Mr. Gilpin quotes the 
following instance from Dr. Plot, of an ash establishing itself on, and finally 
destroying, a willow : — “ An ash key rooting itself on a decayed willow, and 
finding, as it increased, a deficiency of nourishment in the mother plant, began 
to insinuate its fibres, by degrees, through the trunk of the willow into the 
earth. There receiving an additional recruit, it began to thrive, and expand 
itself to such a size, that it burst the willow in pieces which fell away from it 
on every side; and, what was before the root of the ash, being now exposed 
to the air, became the solid trunk of a vigorous tree.” (For. Scen., p.40.) 
Historical, poetical, and mythological Allusions. The ash is mentioned both 
by Hesiod and Homer ; the latter of whom not only speaks of the ashen spear 
of Achilles, but informs us that it was by an ashen spear that he was slain. 
In the heathen mythology, Cupid is said to have made his arrows first of ash 
wood, though they were afterwards formed of cypress. The Scandinavians 
also introduce this tree into their mythology. It is stated in the Edda, that 
the court of the gods is held under a mighty ash, the summit of which reaches 
the heavens, the branches overshadow the whole surface of the earth, and the 
roots penetrate to the infernal regions. An eagle rests on its summit to 
