58 SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. OLEACES. 
the body is clavate and slightly compressed, with margined edges which gradually widen upward into 
a longer wing, which is many-nerved, and narrowed, rounded, apiculate, or sometimes emarginate at the 
apex. 
Fraxinus Oregona inhabits the region surrounding the shores of Puget Sound,’ and ranges south- 
ward through western Washington and Oregon, the California coast region as far south at least as the 
Bay of San Francisco, and along the western foothills of the Sierra Nevada to those of the mountains 
of San Bernardino and San Diego counties in southern California. It grows usually in rich moist soil 
in the neighborhood of streams, and attains its greatest size on the bottom-lands of the rivers of south-. 
western Oregon, where it sometimes forms with the Alder, the Broad-leaved Maple, and the California 
Laurel, forests of considerable extent. 
The wood of Praxinus Oregona is light, hard, brittle, coarse-grained, and contains many thin 
medullary rays and open scattered ducts, the layers of annual growth being clearly marked by several 
rows of similar ducts. It is brown, with thick lighter colored sapwood. The specific gravity of the 
absolutely dry wood is 0.5731, a cubic foot weighing 35.72 pounds. It is largely used in the manufac- 
ture of furniture, for the frames of carriages and wagons, in cooperage, the interior finish of houses, 
and for fuel. 
Fraxinus Oregona, which is one of the most valuable deciduous-leaved trees of the Pacific forests 
of North America, was discovered on the banks of the lower Columbia River by David Douglas in 
1825. It is often planted as a shade-tree in the streets of the cities of Washington and Oregon, and of 
Victoria in British Columbia. The Oregon Ash has proved hardy in the Arnold Arboretum, into which 
it was introduced nearly twenty years ago, and in western and central Europe, where it is occasionally 
found in botanic gardens. 
1 Macoun, Cat. Can. Pl. i. 317. 
EXPLANATION OF THE PLATE. 
Puate CCLXXVI. Fraxinus OreEGona. 
. A flowering branch of the staminate tree, natural size. 
A flowering branch of the pistillate tree, natural size. 
A staminate flower, enlarged. 
. A pistillate flower, enlarged. 
. A fruiting branch, natural size. 
. Vertical section of a fruit, natural size. 
. A seed, natural size. 
. An embryo, enlarged. 
. A leaf, natural size. 
ray 
—) 
. A winter branchlet, natural size. 
