1222 



ARBORETUM AND FRUTICETUM. 



PART III. 



Other, which takes the lead. So that, notwithstanding 

 this natural regularity of growth (so injurious to the 

 picturesque beauty of the spruce fir, and some other 

 trees), the ash never contracts the least disgusting for- 

 mality from it. It may even receive great picturesque 

 beauty ; for sometimes the whole branch is lost as 

 far as one of the lateral shoots ; and this occasions 

 a kind of rectangular junction, which forms a beautiful 

 contrast with the other spray, and displays an elegant 

 mode of hanging to the branches of tiie tree. This 

 points out another difference between the spray of the 



oak and that of the ash. The spray of the oak seldom shoots from the under 

 sides of the brandies; and it is thischiefly which keeps the branches in a hori- 

 zontal form. But the spray of the ash, often breaking out on the underside 

 of the branch, forms very elegant pendent boughs." (id., p. 1 12.) 



Disseinimitbig Properties of the Ash. The ash, like the sycamore, from the 

 wedge-like shape of its keys, or seeds, is liable to fix itself in the crevices of 

 rocks, ruins, walls, and even in the clefts of old trees. On the piers of the 

 entrance to Blenheim Park from Woodstock there were, in I8.34-, a syca- 

 more established on one pier, and an ash on the other, each about 5 ft. high. 

 (See Gard. Mag., vol. x. p. 99.) On the ruins of Sweetheart Abbey, in Dum- 

 friesshire, there is a large tree of the common sycamore on the top of a wall, 

 which, in 1806, when we last saw it, had sent down a fibrous root on the 

 outside of the wall, completely exposed to the air, for the height of 10 ft. 

 or 12 ft., till it reached the ground. This fibre soon afterwards acquired con- 

 siderable thickness, and now constitutes, as we are informed, the main stem 

 of the tree. A similar circumstance took place with a weeping willow, in 

 the Botanic Garden of Carlsruhe, which will be hereafter mentioned ; and 

 the same thing happens not unfrequently with the oak. Mr. Gilpin quotes the 

 following instance from Dr. Plot, of an ash establishing itself on, and finally 

 destroying, a willow : — "An ash key rooting itself on a decayed willow, and 

 finding, as it increased, a deficiency of nourishment in the mother plant, began 

 to insinuate its fibres, by degrees, through the trunk of the willow into the 

 earth. There receiving an additional recruit, it began to thrive, and expand 

 itself to such a size, that it burst the willow in pieces which fell away from it 

 on every side ; and, what was before the root of the ash, being now exposed 

 to the air, became the solid trunk of a vigorous tree." {For. Seen., p. 40.) 



Historical, poetical, and mi/thologicnl Allusions. The ash is mentioned both 

 by Hesiod and Homer; the latter of whom not only speaks of the ashen spear 

 of Achilles, but informs us that it was by an ashen spear that he was slain. 

 In the heathen mythology, Cupid is said to have made his arrows first of ash 

 wood, though they were afterwards formed of cypress. The Scandinavians 

 also introduce this tree into their mythology. It is stated in the Edda, that 

 the court of the gods is held under a mighty ash, the summit of which reaches 

 the heavens, the branches overshadow the whole surface of the earth, and the 

 roots penetrate to the infernal regions. An eagle rests on its summit to 



