412 AMERICAN FOREST TRIJMS 



than a quarter of an inch wide. The petioles are winged like the twigs 

 of wing elm. The undersides of the leaves have small black dots. The 

 winged seeds are as proportionately small as the leaves. The flowers 

 have not been described by botanists, for the species is not well known. 

 The largest trees are scarcely twenty-five feet high and eight inches in 

 diameter. More frequently they are shrubs from four to twelve feet tall. 

 The wood is heavy, hard, brown in color and of slow growth. 



DWARF ASH (Fraxinus anomala) might be mistaken for some other 

 species were its telltale winged seeds missing. It has lost the leaflets 

 from its compound leaf, and a single one remains. Occasionally, how- 

 ever, a stem bearing three leaflets is found. The seeds are equipped 

 with wide, oblong wings. It is a desert species, and the desolate sur- 

 roundings of its habitat explain why nature has dispensed with as much 

 foliage as possible. It is found in southwestern Colorado, in southern 

 Utah, and on the western slopes of the Charleston mountains in southern 

 Nevada. Trees are small and the wood is not of much use for other than 

 fuel, but a few small ranch timbers are made of it where other kinds are 

 scarce. Trunks are usually not more than six or seven inches in diam- 

 eter. The wood is heavy, hard, and light brown in color. 



FRINGE ASH (Fraxinus cuspidata) has some difficulty in proving that it is 

 entitled to be called a tree in the United States, though southward in Mexico its right 

 to that title is unquestioned. It is very small where its range extends over the dry 

 ridges and rocky slopes of southwestern Texas and southern New Mexico and Arizona. 

 Its compound leaves are five or seven inches long, and the leaflets which number from 

 three to seven have long, slender tips. The trowel-shaped fruit is about one inch long. 

 The wood resembles white ash, but trunks of considerable size are not found. The 

 name refers to the flowers, and they give this small tree its value for ornamental 

 purposes. The flowers appear in April and are extremely fragrant. 



