36 SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. OLEACEZ. 
three or rarely two or four-flowered, the pedicels of the lateral flowers being produced from the axils of 
linear acute caducous pale pink bracts an eighth to a quarter of an inch in length. The flowers are 
borne on slender pedicels and are composed of a calyx which is reduced to an obscure ring, two nearly 
sessile stamens with broad connectives and dark purple oblong obtuse anthers, and an oblong-ovate ovary 
gradually narrowed into a short style divided at the apex into two light purple stigmatic lobes which 
generally mature and wither before the anthers open. The fruit is linear-oblong or cuneate-oblong, 
one to two inches long, and a quarter of an inch to nearly an inch wide, the broad wing, which is 
usually conspicuously emarginate at the apex, surrounding the long flat body faintly many-rayed on 
both faces. 
Fraazinus quadrangulata is distributed from southern Michigan to central Missouri, and southward 
to eastern Tennessee and northern Alabama, and through Iowa and Missouri to northeastern Arkansas. 
Nowhere very common, the Blue Ash usually inhabits rich limestone hills, occasionally descending into 
the fertile bottom-lands of river valleys, and reaching its greatest size in the basin of the lower Wabash 
River in Illinois and on the western slopes of the Big Smoky Mountains in Tennessee. 
The wood of Fraxinus quadrangulata is heavy, hard, close-grained, and rather brittle, with 
numerous obscure medullary rays and bands of three rows of large open ducts marking the layers of 
annual growth. It is light yellow streaked with brown, with thick lighter colored sapwood sometimes 
composed of eighty or ninety layers of annual growth. The specific gravity of the absolutely dry wood 
is 0.7184, a cubic foot weighing 44.77 pounds. It is largely used for flooring and in carriage-building, 
and probably is not often distinguished commercially from that of the other species of the northern and 
middle states. 
A blue dye may be obtained by macerating the inner bark in water. 
The Blue Ash was discovered in 1795 by the French botanist Michaux’ during his journey west 
of the Alleghany Mountains, and by him was introduced into European gardens. The excellent habit 
of this tree, its hardiness, rapidity of growth, and freedom from disease and the attacks of insects make 
it a desirable inhabitant of parks, where, however, it is less commonly cultivated than the White Ash 
or the Green Ash. 
1 See i. 58. 
EXPLANATION OF THE PLATE. 
Puate CCLXIII. Fraxinus QUADRANGULATA. 
1. A flowering branch, natural size. 
A flower, enlarged. 
A stamen, enlarged. 
. A pistil cut transversely, enlarged. 
. A fruiting branch, natural size. 
. Vertical section of a fruit, natural size. 
A seed, natural size. 
. An embryo, slightly enlarged. 
OC ONOo AR WD 
. A winter branchlet, natural size. 
