OLEACER. SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 37 
FRAXINUS NIGRA. 
Black Ash. 
FLOWERS polygamous, without calyx. Leaflets 7 to 11, oblong-lanceolate, gradually 
acuminate, the lateral sessile. 
Fraxinus nigra, Marshall, Arbust. Am. 51 (1785). —Cas- f. Hist. Arb. Am. iii. 122, t. 12. — Pursh, F7. Am. Sept. 
tiglioni, Viag. negli Stati Uniti, ii. 244. — Du Roi, i. 8. — Roemer & Schultes, Sys¢. i. 279. — Nuttall, Gen. 
Harbk. Baumz. ed. 2, i. 398. — Koch, Dendr. ii. 257. — ii. 231.— Don, Gen. Syst. iv. 54.— Spach, Hist. Vég. 
Lauche, Deutsche Dendr. ed. 2, 163.— Sudworth, Rep. viii. 299. — Hooker, Fl. Bor.-Am. ii. 50. — De Candolle, 
Sec. Agric. (1892) 326. — Koehne, Deutsche Dendr. 512. Prodr. viii. 278. — Darlington, Fl. Cestr. ed. 3, 239. — 
Fraxinus Nove-Angliz, Du Roi, Harbk. Baumz. ed. 1, i. Emerson, Trees Mass. ed. 2, 381, t. — Gray, Syn. Fl. N. 
290 (not Miller) (1771). — Wangenheim, Nordam. Holz. Am. ii. pt. i. 76. — Ridgway, Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus. 1882, 
51. 69. — Sargent, Forest Trees N. Am. 10th Census U.S. 
Fraxinus sambucifolia, Lamarck, Dict. ii. 549 (1786). — ix. 111.— Wenzig, Bot. Jahrb. iv. 180.— Watson & 
Muehlenberg & Willdenow, Neue Schrift. Gesell. Nat. Fr. Coulter, Gray’s Man. ed. 6, 336. — Hitchcock, Trans. St. 
Berlin, iii. 393.— Borkhausen, Handb. Forst. Bot. i. Louis Acad. v. 507. 
829. — Willdenow, Berl. Baumz. 121; Spec. iv. 1099; Fraxinus Americana, var. sambucifolia, D. J. Browne, 
Enum. 1059. — Vahl, Enum. i. 51.— Persoon, Syn. ii. Trees of America, 396 (1846). 
605. — Bose, Mém. Inst. ix. 211.— Nouveau Duhamel, Fraxinus nigra, subspec. nigra, Wesmael, Bull. Bot. Belg. 
iv. 60. — Desfontaines, Hist. Arb. i. 103. — Michaux xxx. 112 (1892). 
A tree, occasionally eighty to ninety feet in height, with a tall trunk rarely exceeding twenty 
inches in diameter, and slender mostly upright branches which form a narrow head; or usually much 
smaller. The bark of the trunk, which varies from a third to a half of an inch in thickness, is divided 
into large irregular plates, the gray surface which is slightly tinged with red separating into thin 
papery scales. The branches are stout and terete, and when they first appear are dark green and 
slightly puberulous; they soon become ashy gray or orange-color, and are marked with large pale scat- 
tered lenticels; during their first winter they grow darker and are roughened by the large suborbicular 
leaf-scars in which appear a semicircular row of conspicuous fibro-vascular bundle-scars. The leaf-buds 
are broadly ovate, acute, and rather less than a quarter of an inch long, with three pairs of scales; those 
of the outer pair are thick and rounded on the back at the base, gradually narrowed and acute at the 
apex, dark brown or almost black and slightly puberulous ; they nearly inclose the bud, and fall as it 
begins to grow in the spring; the scales of the two inner rows are coated on the outer surface with 
rufous pubescence and lengthen with the young branch; at maturity the scales of the second pair, 
which are thickened at the base, are strap-shaped, an inch long, a third of an inch wide, and about half 
the length of those of the inner pair, which are pinnate and usually foliaceous, with a broad stalk. 
The leaves are twelve to sixteen inches long, with stout pale petioles and seven to eleven leaflets ; these 
are sessile, with the exception of the terminal one, which is borne on a long or short petiolule, oblong 
or oblong-lanceolate, long-pointed at the apex, unequally wedge-shaped or sometimes rounded at the 
base, and remotely serrate with small incurved teeth; when they unfold they are covered, especially 
on the lower surface, with rufous hairs, and at maturity they are thin and firm, dark green above, 
paler below, glabrous, with the exception of occasional tufts of rufous hairs along the under side of 
the broad pale midribs, four or five inches long, and an inch to two inches wide, with many conspicuous 
primary veins arcuate near the margins, and obscure reticulate veinlets. The leaves, which usually do 
not unfold in New England until after the middle of May, or until the beginning of June at the north, 
turn rusty brown, and fall early in the autumn. The flowers appear before the leaves in compact or 
