578 



FR A 



THE UNIVERSAL HERBAL; 



FR A 



Fraxinus ; a genus of the class Polygamia, order Dioecia ; 

 or class DioGcia, order Diandria. GENERIC CHARACTER. 

 Hermaphrodite. Calix: none, or a perianth one-leafed, four- 

 parUd, upright, sharp, small. Corolla : none, or petals four, 

 linear, long, sharp, upright. Stamina : filamenta two, upright, 

 much shorter than the corolla : antherse upright, oblong, four- 

 furrowed. Pistil: germen ovate, compressed ; style cylindric, 

 upright ; stigma t-hickish, bifid. Pericarp : none, except the 

 crust of the seed, (capsule two-celled, leafy, and flatted at top, 

 according to Goertner.) Seed: lanceolate, flatted, and mem- 

 branaceous, one-celled. Female, the same as the male, except 

 that it has no stamina. Observe. The first species has 

 neither calix nor corolla. The female has frequently herma- 

 phrodite flowers, and the hermaphrodite has females inter- 

 spersed. The third species has a calix and corolla, and is 

 always hermaphrodite. ESSENTIAL CHARACTER. Herma- 

 phrodite. Calix: none, or four-parted. Corolla: none, or 

 four-petalled. Stamina.: two. Pistil: one. Seed (or Cap- 

 sule:) one, lanceolate. Female. Pistil: one, lanceolate. 



The species are, 



1. Fraxinus Excelsior; Common Ask Tree. Leaflets lan- 

 ceolate, serrate, sessile; flowers without petals. The leaves 

 have generally five pairs of leaflets, (four to six,) and one odd 

 one, of a dark green. The flowers are produced in loose 

 spikes from the side of the branches, and are succeeded by 

 flat seeds, which ripen in autumn. The lateral buds produce 

 the flowers, and the terminating one the leaves. Bractes 

 linear, one on the outside at the base of each pedicle: fila- 

 menta broad and flat, not so long as the antherse, which are 

 of a blackish purple colour. There are not only hermaphro- 

 dite and female flowers, but also male ones, so that this spe- 

 cies should seem referable to the order Dioecia. Care should 

 be taken in observing the flowers; for in those whirh are 

 hermaphrodite, the germen which lies between the two sta- 

 mina does not grow till some days after they appear, so that 

 they seem at first to be male flowers. What Linneus calls a 

 seed, others call a capsule: the seed being covered with a 

 leathery kind of crust, which does not split or open. Its 

 usual time of flowering is in April, before the leaves, some- 

 times so late as May, from lateral buds, below the leaf-buds, 

 and are greenish, and inconspicuous. Both are sometimes 

 much injured by spring frosts. If a wood of these trees be 

 rightly managed, it will turn greatly to the advantage of its 

 owner; for by the underwood, which will be fit to cut every 

 seven or eight years for hoops, or every fourteen years for 

 hop-poles, &c. there will be a continual income, more than 

 sufficient to pay the rent of the ground, and all other 

 charges, and still there will be a stock preserved for timber, 

 which, in a few years, will be worth forty or fifty shillings the 

 free. The Ash is, however, a very improper tree for hedge- 

 rows, and the borders of arable land ; the drip of it is very 

 unfavourable to all other vegetable productions ; it exhausts 

 the soil very much, and the root spreads widely near the sur- 

 face. Nor, though it be a handsome tree, ought it on any 

 account to be planted fur protection or ornament, because 

 the leaves come out late, and fall early. The fertile trees 

 also generally exhaust themselves so much in bearing keys 

 or fruit, that their foliage is scanty, and their appearance 

 unsightly. The trees, however, which bear female flowers 

 only, have a full and verdant foliage, and make a hand- 

 some figure, though late in the season. It is well calcu- 

 lated for standards and clumps in parks and plantations, 

 and for grovea and woods. It will grow in very bairen 

 soil, and in the bleakest and most exposed situations. 

 It is hardy enough to endure the sea winds well, and 

 may therefore be planted on the coast, where few trees 



will prosper. If planted by ditch sides, or in low boggy 

 meadows, the roots act as underdrains, and render the 

 ground about them firm and hard ; the timber, however, ia 

 in this case but of little value. It was natural that our 

 remote ancestors, when the island was overrun with wood, 

 should value trees rather for their fruit than their timber : it 

 is no wonder then, that by the laws of Howel Dda, the price 

 of an Oak or a Beech should be 120 pence, while the Ash, 

 because it furnished no food for swine, was valued only at 

 four pence. The Edda of Woden, however, holds the Ash in 

 the highest veneration ; and man is described as being formed 

 from it. It is probably owing to the remains of Gothic vene- 

 ration for this tree, that the country people in the south-east 

 part of the kingdom split young Ashes, and pass their 

 distempered children through the chasm, in hopes of a 

 cure. They have also a superstitious custom of boring a 

 hole in an Ash, and fastening in a shrew-mouse; a few 

 strokes with a branch of this tree is then accounted a sove- 

 reign remedy against cramps and lameness in cattle, which 

 are ignorantly supposed to proceed from this harmless animal. 

 In many parts of the Highlands of Scotland, at the birth of a 

 child, the nurse or midwife puts one end of a green stick of 

 this tree into the fire, and while it is burning receives into a 

 spoon the sap or juice which oozes out at the other end, and 

 administers this as the first spoonful of liquor to the newborn 

 babe. It is not common to see the Ash of a very great size, 

 although instances of large trees are not wanting. Dr. Plot 

 mentions one of eight feet in diameter, valued at thirty pounds. 

 Mr. Marsham informs us of another in Benel church-yard, 

 near Dumbarton, in Scotland, which, in the year 1768, mea- 

 sured sixteen feet nine inches in circumference, at five feet 

 from the ground. Mr. Evelyn says, that some trees sold in 

 Essex, were one hundred and thirty-two feet in length. Mr. 

 Arthur Young, in his Irish Tour, mentions some of seventy 

 and eighty feet in height, which were only of thirty-five years' 

 growth. The trunk of one on the bank of the Avonmore, was 

 above fourteen feet round, and carried nearly the same dimen- 

 sions for eighteen feet. An Ash at Dunganstown was twelve 

 feet round, and quite clear of branches for thirty feet, where it 

 measured ten feet round, and the arms extended in beautiful 

 forms twenty-eight yards. At Tiny Park was another, the cir- 

 cumference of which, in the smallest part, somewhat exceeded 

 nineteen feet, or six feet four inches in diameter. At Luttrel's- 

 town, the seat of the Earl of Carhampton, are several Ash- 

 trees, from eleven to thirteen feet six inches round, one of 

 which was sold for thirteen pounds. At Leixlip Castle, is a 

 row of eighteen Ash-trees, on a very bleak exposure, measuring 

 from nine to twelve feet round, with fair stems of considerable 

 height, and fine branching heads. At Donirey, near Clare 

 Castle, in the county of Galway, is an old Ash, that at four 

 feet from the ground measures forty-two feet in circum- 

 ference, and at six feet high, thirty-three feet: the trunk has 

 long been hollow, so that a little school has been kept in it, 

 although the few branches that still remain are very fresh and 

 vigorous. Near Kenmty Church in the Kingfs County, is an 

 Ash, tin- trunk of which is twenty-one feet ten inches round, 

 and it is seventeen feet high before the branches, which 

 are enormously large, break out. When a funeral of the 

 lower cluss passes by, they lay the corpse down for a few 

 minutes, say a prayer, and then throw a stone, to increase 

 tin In ,.p, which lias long been accumulating round the root. 

 Finally, in the church-yard of Lochabar in Scotland, Dr. 

 Walker measured the trunk of a dead Ash, which, at five 

 feet from the surface of the ground, was fifty-eight feet in 

 circumference. The timber of the Ash is next in value to 

 the Oak, and in some places equal to it. It is hard and 



