838 TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



5. Fraxinus caroliniana Mill. Water Ash. Swamp Ash. 



Leaves 7 '-12' long, with an elongated stout terete pale petiole, and 5-7 long-stalked 

 ovate to oblong acute or acuminate leaflets rarely rounded at apex, cuneate or sometimes 

 rounded or subcordate at base, and coarsely serrate with acute incurved teeth, or entire, 

 pilose above and more or less hoary-tomentose below when they unfold, and at maturity 

 thick and firm, 3'-6' long and 2'-3' wide, dark green above, paler or sometimes yellow- 

 green and glabrous or pubescent (var. Rehderiana Sarg.) beneath, particularly along the 

 conspicuous midrib and the numerous arcuate veins connected by obscure reticulate vein- 

 lets. Flowers dioecious, appearing in February and March in short or ultimately elongated 

 panicles inclosed in the bud by chestnut-brown pubescent scales; staminate flower with a 

 minute or nearly obsolete calyx, and 2 or sometimes 4 stamens, with slender filaments and 

 linear apiculate anthers; calyx of the pistillate flower cup-shaped, deeply divided and lacini- 

 ate, as long as the ovary gradually narrowed into an elongated slender style. Fruit elliptic 

 to oblong-obovate, frequently 3-winged, surrounded at base by the persistent calyx, 2' long, 

 s'-f wide, often marked on the 2 faces by a conspicuous impressed midvein, the body 

 short, compressed, and surrounded by the broad thin many-nerved sometimes bright vio- 

 let-colored wing, acute or acuminate, or rounded and emarginate at apex and usually nar- 

 rowed below into a stalk-like base. 



A tree, rarely more than 40 high, with a trunk sometimes 12' in diameter, small branches 

 forming a narrow often round-topped head, and slender terete branchlets light green and 

 glabrous or tomentose when they first appear, light brow r n tinged with red and sometimes 

 covered with a glaucous bloom or rarely pubescent or tomentose (var. Rehderiana Sarg.) 

 in their first winter, becoming in their second year light gray or yellow, occasionally marked 



Fig. 742 



by large pale lenticels, and by the elevated semiorbicular leaf-scars displaying a short row 

 of conspicuous fibro-vascular bundle-scars. Winter-buds: terminal, f ' long, with 3 pairs 

 of ovate acute chestnut-brown puberulous scales, those of the outer rank thickened at base, 

 rounded on the back, and shorter than the others. Bark of the trunk rV-l' thick, light 

 gray, more or less marked by large irregularly shaped round patches, and separating on the 

 surface into small thin closely appressed scales. Wood light, soft, weak, close-grained, 

 nearly white sometimes tinged with yellow, with thick lighter colored sapwood. 



Distribution. Deep river swamps inundated during several months of the year, usually 

 under the shade of larger trees, or rarely in drier ground; coast region of the Atlantic and 

 Gulf states, valley of the Potomac River, Virginia, near Washington, D.C., to Florida 

 southward to Lake County and on the west coast to the valley of the lower Apalachicola 



