OLEACEZ. 
SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 
25 
FRAXINUS. 
FLOWERS regular, dicecious or polygamous, rarely perfect; calyx 4-lobed, or 0; 
corolla 2 to 6-parted, the divisions induplicate or valvate in estivation, or 0; stamens 
usually 2; disk 0; ovary superior, 2 or rarely 3 or 4-celled; ovules usually 2 in each 
cell, suspended. Fruit a 1 or rarely 2 or 3-seeded and winged samara. 
Leaves 
unequally pinnate or rarely reduced to a single leaflet, destitute of stipules, deciduous. 
Fraxinus, Linneus, Gen. 318 (1737).— Adanson, Fam. Pl. 
ii. 445. — A. L. de Jussieu, Gen. 105. — Endlicher, Gen. 
573. — Meisner, Gen. 256. — Bentham & Hooker, Gen. 
ii. 676. — Baillon, Hist. Pl. xi. 251. — Engler & Pranil, 
Mannaphorus, Rafinesque, Am. Monthl. Mag. and Crit. 
Rev. ii. 175 (1818). 
Leptalix, Rafinesque, New FI. iii. 93 (1836). 
Ornanthes, Rafinesque, New 7. iii. 93 (1836). 
Aplilia, Rafinesque, New FI. iii. 93 (1836). 
Samarpses, Rafinesque, New 7. iii. 93 (1836). 
Pflanzenfam. iv. pt. ii. 5. 
Ornus, Necker, Elem. Bot. ii. 375 (1790). 
Glabrous or pubescent trees or shrubs, with colorless watery juices, light tough wood, thick 
furrowed or rarely thin and scaly bark, usually ash-colored branchlets with thick pith, leaf-buds with 
few thick accrescent scales marking in falling the base of the branches with ring-like persistent scars, 
and fibrous roots. Leaves opposite, petiolate, unequally pinnate or rarely reduced to a single leaflet, 
destitute of stipules; leaflets conduplicate in vernation, membranaceous or subcoriaceous, usually 
serrate, petiolulate or sessile. Flowers produced in early spring in open or compact slender-branched 
panicles terminal on leafy shoots of the year, or developed from the axils of new leaves, or from 
separate buds im the axils of leaves of the previous year or at the base of young branchlets and covered 
with two ovate scales.’ Bracts obovate, linear or lanceolate, caducous. Pedicels slender, elongated, 
ebracteolate. Calyx campanulate, four-lobed, deciduous or persistent under the fruit, or wanting. 
Corolla composed of two or four or rarely of five or six’ petals free or united in pairs at the base, or 
wanting. Stamens usually two or sometimes three or four, attached to the base of the petals or 
hypogynous; rudimentary or wanting in unisexual pistillate flowers; filaments terete, abbreviated or 
elongated ; anthers ovate or linear-oblong, apiculate or muticous, introrse, attached on the back near 
the base, two-celled, the cells opening longitudinally by lateral slits. Ovary superior, two or rarely 
three-celled, contracted into a short or elongated style crowned with a two-lobed stigma; rudimentary 
or wanting in unisexual staminate flowers; ovules two in each cell, suspended in pairs from its inner 
angle, anatropous; raphe dorsal, micropyle superior. Fruit samaroid, lanceolate or oblong-spatulate, 
indehiscent, the body terete or slightly flattened contrary to the septum, with a dry and woody pericarp 
produced into an elongated terminal and more or less decurrent wing, usually one-celled by abortion, 
by four scales. The lower bracts usually resemble the bud-scales 
in color and texture, although they are larger, usually narrow, 
1 In the American species of the section Fraxinastrum the 
inflorescence is a three-branched panicle inclosed in the bud by a 
pair of opposite broadly ovate scales, the lower branches being 
The central division of the panicle is 
often obovate, and generally wither before falling. The bracts at 
developed from their axils. the base of the lateral flowers of the three-flowered ultimate divi- 
furnished with two branches which spring from the axils of bracts, 
and as the axis of the inflorescence lengthens these are carried up 
with it, remaining at the base of the branches. Where the central 
division of the panicle branches near the base these bracts are not 
carried up, the base of the panicle then appearing to be surrounded 
sions of the panicle are narrowly obovate or lanceolate, and some- 
times laciniately cut. 
2 In Fraxinus Mariesii, Hooker f. (Bot. Mag. cix. t. 6678 [1883]), 
the corolla is usually divided into five or six petals. 
