OLEACEA, 
SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 33 
FRAXINUS CORIACEA. 
Ash. 
LEAFLets 5, ovate to oblong, mostly coarsely serrate, long-petiolulate. 
Fraxinus coriacea, Watson, Am. Nat. vii. 302 (1873); Fraxinus pistacieefolia, Sargent, Forest Trees N. Am. 10th 
Cat. Pl. Wheeler, 15.— Rothrock, Wheeler’s Rep. vi. Census U. S. ix. 106 (in part) (not Torrey) (1884). 
185, t. 22.— Coville, Contrib. U. 8S. Nat. Herb. iv. 148 Fraxinus velutina, Sargent, Silva N. Am. vi. 41 (in part) 
(Bot. Death Valley Exped.). (not Torrey) (1894). 
Fraxinus pistacizefolia, var. coriacea, Gray, Syn. Fl. N. 
Am. ii. pt. i. T4 (1878). — Wenzig, Bot. Jahrb. iv. 182. 
A tree, occasionally thirty feet in height, with a trunk from twelve to sixteen inches in diameter, 
stout spreading branches forming a round-topped head, and comparatively slender ashy gray branchlets 
which, tomentose when they first appear and coated with soft fine pubescence for one or two years, 
are ultimately glabrous. The leaves are generally about six inches long, with stout grooved pubescent 
petioles, and usually five leaflets ; these are ovate or oblong, acute, acuminate or rounded at the apex, 
broadly cuneate or rounded at the base, coarsely repand-serrate, long-petiolulate, coated as they appear 
with long pale hairs, which are most abundant on the lower surface, and at maturity thick and firm in 
texture, dark green and glabrous on the upper surface, pale and glabrous or pubescent on the lower 
surface, from two to three inches long and from one to two inches wide. On leading shoots the 
leaves are sometimes reduced to single long-stalked leaflets, or are three-foliolate, with a large termi- 
nal leaflet and small lateral leaflets. The flowers, which appear about the middle of April with or 
before the unfolding leaves, are produced in short compact panicles, the males and females on different 
individuals from buds in the axils of leaves of the previous year, covered by broadly ovate scales 
rounded and often short-pointed at the apex, and coated on the outer surface with rusty tomentum. 
The calyx is cup-shaped and larger and more deeply divided in the pistillate than in the staminate 
flower. The anthers are oblong and nearly sessile. 
style slightly divided into two stigmatic lobes. 
narrow clusters from two to three inches in length; it is slender, oblong, from three quarters of an inch 
The ovary is abruptly narrowed into the slender 
The fruit ripens late in the season, and is borne in 
to an inch long, and the wing, which is rounded and often emarginate at the apex and about an eighth 
of an inch wide, is about as long as the terete wingless body." 
Fraxinus coriacea inhabits the desert region of southern Utah, northern Arizona, southern 
Nevada, and southeastern California, and has been collected in the neighborhood of St. George, Utah,’ 
at Ash Meadows, Nevada,’ in the Devil Run Cafion, Arizona,’ and on Cottonwood Creek on the west 
side of Owen’s Lake, California.° 
1 In the sixth volume of this work Fraxinus coriacea was con- 
sidered a form of Fraxinus velutina. It differs from that species 
in its fewer longer-stalked leaflets which are more coriaceous and 
more coarsely serrate, and in its range, Fraxinus coriacea being a 
tree of the mesas and low plains, while Fraxinus velutina is an in- 
habitant of mountain cafions; and with our still slight knowledge of 
the southwestern species of Fraxinus it is perhaps best to consider 
it a species. 
2 By Dr. Edward Palmer in 1875, and by J. W. Carpenter in 
1898. 
8 By Lieutenant Wheeler, U.S. A., in 1871, and by Dr. Freder- 
ick V. Coville on the Death Valley Expedition in 1891. 
4 By Dr. J. M. Bigelow of the Mexican Boundary Survey (teste 
S. Watson), who was probably the discoverer of this tree. 
5 By Dr. Frederick V. Coville on the Death Valley Expedition 
in 1891. 
