pents twine around the trunk, and from its roots flow two streams, that of the 

 knowledge of things past and that of the knowledge of things to come. 



Scandinavian mythology relates that Odin made the first man from a 

 piece of ash which he found on the seashore, and so the Vikings were called 

 the Ashmen. They used the wood of the ash for spear-shafts and axe-handles, 

 and their ships were fashioned out of it since they believed it had special power 

 to withstand evil both in the day of battle and of storm. 



The Greeks also had a tradition of the origin of man from an ash, and its 

 wood was deemed worthy to form the spear-handles of Achilles and other of 

 their heroes. 



In the middle ages the ash was supposed to be a safeguard against witches 

 especially if it was made a "Shrew Ash" by burying a live shrew-mouse in a 

 hole in its trunk. It was believed that leaves and twigs taken from such a 

 tree were a sovereign remedy for cattle suffering from cramp, which was 

 supposed to be due to a shrew-mouse having run over the suffering part. 

 Ash leaves were reported to cure warts, provided one said to the tree, "Ashen 

 tree, Ashen tree, pray buy these warts of me," as one placed the leaves on 

 the warts. Serpents were supposed to have an aversion to the ash, and it 

 was reported that they would "sooner run into the fire than into the boughs, 

 and that they dare not so much as touch the morning and evening shadows of 

 the tree." 



The ash has been called the Venus of the forest because of the airiness 

 in its foliage due to the subdividing of its leaves. There are thirty to forty 

 species in the genus Fraxinus to which it belongs, growing mostly in the tem- 

 perate regions of the northern hemisphere. In North America, sixteen species 

 are recognized, the white ash being the most beautiful and useful of the 

 American species. The English ash is attractive with its fine foliage and black 

 buds to which Tennyson compared the jet blackness of the hair of the gar- 

 dener's daughter as being "more black than ash buds in the front of March." 



The smooth ashen-gray bark of the bole is supposed to be the origin of 

 the name ash. The flowers come first, and then the leaf-buds burst, displaying 

 tiny leaflets laid together like the pleats of a fan. As the leaves open each 

 leaf is composed of a terminal leaflet and a number of lateral leaflets arranged 

 in pairs along the midrib. The fruit ripens in the fall and hangs on the trees 

 in clusters through the winter. The fruit is often called ash keys, the botanical 



(SO) 



