EUROPEAN ASH-TREE. 337 
21. F. e. parvifolia. Small-leaved European Ash ; Fraxinus partrifolia, of Don, 
Loudon, and others; Frened petites feuillcs, of the French ; KleinbMttrige Esche, 
of the Germans. This variety is a native of the Levant, having from five to 
seven pairs of leaflets, which are sessile, roundish, ovate, and oblong. They are 
attenuated, and quite entire at the base, but mucronate and sharply serrated at 
the apex. The flowers are naked, and put forth in April and May. And the 
branches are purplish, and trigonal at the top. 
22. F. e. argentea. Silvery '-leaved European Ash ; Fraxinus argentea, of Don, 
Loudon, and others ; Frene du Corse, of the French. The leaves of this variety 
are of a silver-gray, and usually have three pairs of rather coriaceous, elliptic- 
ovate, shortly-cuspidate, bluntly-toothed leaflets, on short petiolules. It is a 
native of the island of Corsica, in the fissures of rocks. 
23. F. e. oxycarpa. Sharp-fruited European Ash; Fraxinus ozycarpa, of 
Don, Loudon, and others; Frene a fruits pointu, of the French. The leaves of 
this variety are of a dark glossy green, and are produced in tufts at the ends of 
the branches. They have from two to three pairs of leaflets, almost sessile, 
which are lanceolate, acuminated, serrated, and glabrous. The flowers are 
naked. The samarse lanceolate, attenuated at both ends, and mucronate. The 
branchlets are green, with white dots; and the buds are brown. This tree is a 
native of Caucasus. 
24. F. e. pallida. Pale-barked European Ash; Fraxinus pallida, of Don, 
Loudon, and others. The leaves of this variety have three pairs of leafh ts, 
which are glabrous, almost sessile, ovate-lanceolate, and toothed. The branches 
are yellow. 
Geography and History. The Fraxinus excelsior is indigenous to most parts 
of Europe, northern Africa, and Japan. It nowhere arrives at greater perfection 
,han in Britain, where it is found from the county of Ross to Cornwall. It 
ilso abounds in the forests of France, Germany, Sweden, Norway, and of Russia. 
The ash was known to the Greeks, whose name for it was melia, or boumelia ; 
and to the Romans, who, it is said, named it Fraxinus, quia facile frangitur i to 
express the fragile nature of the wood, as the boughs of it are easily, broken; and 
both the Greeks and Romans made their spears of its wood. By the Roman 
agricultural writers it is recommended as peculiarly fit for making implements 
of husbandry, to which purpose it is chiefly applied in modern times. In Britain, 
it ranks amongst the most beautiful of their trees, although, in the ancient 
history of that country, it was very little regarded; indeed, some idea of the 
value set upon it may be formed, from the fact, that in the laws of the celebrated 
Howel Dda, while a branch of mistletoe was valued at thirty shillings, the ash 
was unmentioned, and therefore must be ranked with trees after the thorn, and 
rated at fourpence. Druidical superstition, however, has vanished, and now. 
while the mistletoe is but little valued except by the bird-catcher, tor the manu- 
facture of his lime, the ash is styled by way of eminence, the "husbandman s 
tree," on account of its celebrity for the formation of agricultural implements and 
for purposes of domestic economy. . 
Among numerous ashes of extraordinary size, recorded as growing m Britain, 
may be mentioned those spoken of by Evelyn, "lately sold in Essex, in length 
one hundred and thirty-two feet," and the celebrated tree which formerly stood 
in the churchyard of Kilmalie, in Lochaber. The latter was considered the 
largest and the most remarkable tree in the Highlands. Lochiel, and his numer- 
ous kindred and clan held it in great veneration for generations, which is sup- 
posed to have been the cause of its destruction; it being burnt to the ground 
the brutal soldiery, in 1746. En one direction, its diameter was seventeen 
and three inches, and the cross diameter twenty-one feet; its circumference- 
the ground was fifty-eight feet. 
