906 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 



FRAXINUS BILTMOREANA, Biltmore Ash 



Fraxinus Biltmoreana, Beadle, Bot. Gazette, xxv. 358 (1898); Sargent, Trees N. Amer. 773, fig. 618 



(95)- 

 Fraxinus catawbiensis, Ashe, Bot. Gazette, xxxiii. 230 (1902). 



A tree attaining in America, according to Ashe, over 100 feet in height, with a 

 girth of about 7 feet. Young shoots covered with a dense white pubescence, retained 

 in the second year; lenticels few, conspicuous, narrow, long, white. Leaflets (Plate 

 266, Fig. 30), seven to nine, about 4 inches long, oval or oblong (the terminal 

 one on a long stalk, broadly oval or obovate), abruptly tapering and unequal 

 at the base, acuminate at the apex, remotely serrate (the serrations often 

 obsolete, so that the margin is nearly entire), with occasional scattered cilia ; distinctly 

 stalked with pubescent petiolules, f to \ inch long; upper surface dark green, 

 glabrous except for a little pubescence towards the base of the leaflet ; lower surface 

 white in colour, with a thin fine short pubescence, densest on the sides of the 

 midrib and nerves. Rachis of the leaf slender, terete, finely pubescent, not grooved 

 or only slightly grooved towards the apex. 



Flowers (section Leptalix) dioecious in pubescent panicles in the axils of the 

 leaf-scars of the previous year ; corolla absent. Fruit girt at the base by the 

 persistent calyx; body, short, elliptical, many- nerved ; wing not decurrent, only 

 slightly narrowed at the ends, emarginate at the apex. 



Buds shortly ovoid, with four outer visible scales, equal in length, the external 

 pair overlapping the inner pair ; scales carinate, obtuse at the apex, orange-coloured, 

 and covered with a scaly pubescence. 



This species, as regards leaf- characters, looks like a pubescent Fraxinus 

 americana ; 1 and is readily distinguished from F. pennsylvanica by the leaflet being 

 white in colour beneath, with a finer pubescence, and being more abruptly tapering 

 and unequal at the base, with shallower and remoter serrations, which often become 

 obsolete. The rachis of the leaf is like that of F. americana. 



According to Sargent, it occurs on the banks of streams from northern West 

 Virginia through the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains to northern Georgia and 

 Alabama, and to middle Tennessee. 



This species in the United States has apparently been considered to be a form 

 of F. pennsylvanica, and has been in cultivation probably as long. At Fawley Court, 

 Oxfordshire, the residence of W. D. Mackenzie, Esq., there are two fine trees. The 

 largest, in a shrubbery, rather crowded by other trees, is about 80 feet in height by 

 7 feet 3 inches in girth. The other, standing in the open, is a very well-shaped 

 vigorous tree (Plate 247), measuring 68 feet by 6 feet 6 inches. Both are bearing 

 mistletoe and grow in good alluvial soil. The bark is grey in colour, and fissured 

 like that of the white ash. (A. H.) 



1 Beadle says that this species bears the same relation to F. americana as F. pennsylvanica bears to F. lanceolala. 

 Lingelsheim, op. cit. 191, 222, considers this species to be a hybrid, between F. americana and F. pennsylvanica; but its 

 wide distribution and abundance in the forest are not favourable to his view. 



