The Ashes and the Fringe Tree 



implements, frames of vehicles, tool handles, oars, furniture, 

 interior finish of houses, stairs, and fuel. 



The white ash is one of the trees that holds its own in our 

 Eastern forests, the peer of the loftiest oak or sycamore or black 

 walnut. Narrow as its head is when crowded in the company 

 of other trees, it can broaden out into a canopy of benignant 

 shade when it has room to grow naturally. The white of its 

 leaf linings enters into its name. The pale twigs and bark also 

 justify its name. 



The tree is a column of grey in winter, topped by upright 

 branches and erect, rigid twigs, set with mathematical accuracy 

 in opposite pairs. There is little grace in such a tree until June 

 has covered it with supple new shoots, and the leaves droop and 

 flutter in sun and wind. Then the white ash stands transformed, 

 and all through the summer the pistillate trees are hung with 

 bountiful clusters of pale or rosy keys that dance and gleam and 

 fairly dazzle the eyes of the beholder. 



Staminate trees ordinarily shed their flowers as soon as the 

 bursting pollen cells have turned their purple to gold. A little 

 mite has discovered some virtue in these flower clusters, and 

 mite families innumerable are raised therein, causing the dis- 

 torted blossoms to remain in place, though withered. 1 once 

 found an old man carefully gathering these bunches in winter, 

 thinking them to be seed of the tree. He looked incredulous 

 when 1 tried to dispel his illusion, and a moment later resumed 

 his task. 



In the South the white ash languishes, is undersized, and its 

 wood is of poor quality. In the Northeastern and Central States 

 it is at its best, and is counted one of the most important of our 

 American timber trees. It is probably put to more uses than any 

 other species. 



In cultivation, the small-fruited white ash (var. microcarpa. 

 Gray) is often met with. The clustered darts are scarce one-half 

 inch long. 



Black Ash (Fraxinus nigra, Marsh.) Slender, upright tree 

 with narrow head, 50 to 90 feet high; twigs stout. Dark close 

 textured, dark grey, with interlacing furrows; twigs smooth, grey, 

 with pale lenticels. Wood brown, soft, heavy, tough, splitting 

 into annual layers along the porous spring wood. Buds broadly 

 ovate, almost black, granular-pubescent; inner scales becoming 



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