AMERICAN FOREST TREES 423 



South and flourishes there. It is not a large tree, but of sufficient size 

 for use as furniture, finish, and vehicle making. It is seldom listed in 

 statistics of woods which go to sawmills, yet it is known that a good 

 many logs find their way to mills, while wagon makers and slack coopers 

 employ it in producing their commodities. The tree is an abundant 

 seeder, and the seeds continue to fall during most of the winter. 



RED ASH (Fraxinus pennsylvanica) is neither a large tree nor very abundant, 

 yet it has a wide range and is put to use wherever lumbermen find it convenient. 

 The lumber generally passes in the market as white ash, and for most purposes it is 

 as good, but is rated lower than that wood in elasticity. It is called brown ash in 

 Maine, black ash in New Jersey, river ash in Rhode Island. The last name is be- 

 stowed because the tree prefers moist land near rivers and ponds, and largest speci- 

 mens are found in such situations, where it is often an associate of black ash and is 

 frequently mistaken for it, though it should not be difficult to tell the species apart. 

 A slight reddish tinge sometimes shows on the outer bark ; the inner layer of bark is 

 reddish; the small twigs and the under sides of leaves are clothed with hairs which 

 sometimes suggest redness; and the heartwood is reddish-brown. Persons who speak 

 of the tree as red ash probably have one or more of those characteristics in mind. As 

 a tree it has no striking peculiarities. Its usual height is forty or sixty feet; its 

 diameter from fifteen to twenty inches ; its compound leaves ten or twelve inches long, 

 with seven or nine leaflets; its seeds one or two inches in length, narrow, and sharply 

 pointed, with slender, graceful wing. 



The range of red ash is from New Brunswick to Dakota, and from Florida to 

 Alabama, with all of the included region of a million square miles. It attains its best 

 development in the north Atlantic states, while it is usually inferior west of the 

 Alleghany mountains. It develops a broad crown in open ground, but even there its 

 lower limbs die and drop, while in forests the trunk grows tall and the crown is re- 

 duced. It is planted for shade and ornament, but it seems to have no superiority 

 over white ash for that purpose. Some of the Michigan manufacturers list red ash 

 separately in their factories, and apparently this is not done elsewhere in the country. 

 About three-quarters of a million feet a year are used in that state, and since uses 

 there are doubtless typical of uses in the country generally, the list possesses im- 

 portance: Automobile frames, boxes, butter tubs, crates, eveners, flooring, furniture, 

 interior finish, neck yokes, singletrees, wagon poles. Farther east in early times red 

 ash was occasionally split for fence rails, but that use is important now only as history. 



PUMPKIN ASH (Fraxinus profunda) is a tree of peculiar interest. It was 

 unknown before 1893, though the region had been settled over a hundred years. It 

 has the largest leaves, largest fruit, and largest swelled base of all American ashes. 

 Notwithstanding that, it remained so deeply hidden in swamps that it escaped dis- 

 covery. The botanical name refers to the deep swamps in which the tree chooses its 

 habitation. Its great, swelled base enables it to stand on the soft mud of lagoon 

 bottoms, and the abnormal swelling is ribbed like a pumpkin, hence the only English 

 name the tree has ever had. These are not the only remarkable things connected 

 with this ash. Its range includes three or four deep swamps, far apart. One is in 

 southern Missouri, New Madrid country, another near Varney, Arkansas, and a third, 

 in a vast morass on the Apalachicola river, Florida. It is believed to have been 

 originally a Florida species, and by some freak of nature it reached the Missouri and 

 Arkansas swamps. Certain other Florida plants accompanied it, one of which was 

 corkwood (Leitneria floridana). It is expected that pumpkin ash will be found else- 



