842 



TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



pinnatifid, green tinged with brown toward the apex, covered with pellucid dots and very 

 lustrous. Bark of the trunk l'-3' thick, dark brown or gray tinged with red, and deeply 

 divided by narrow fissures into broad flattened ridges separating on the surface into thin 

 appressed scales. Wood heavy, hard, strong, close-grained, tough, and brown, with thick 

 lighter colored sapwood; used in large quantities in the manufacture of agricultural imple- 

 ments, for the handles of tools, in carriage-building, for oars and furniture, and in the inte- 

 rior finish of buildings; the most valuable of the American species as a timber-tree. 



Distribution. Common in rich rather moist soil on low hills, and in the neighborhood of 

 streams; Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, southern Quebec and Ontario and the southern 

 peninsula of Michigan, and westward and southward to eastern Minnesota, central Iowa, 

 southeastern Nebraska, eastern Kansas, and northern Oklahoma to the valley of the Salt 

 Fork of the Arkansas River in Woods County (near Alva, G. W. Stevens}, and to Florida to 

 Taylor County and the valley of the lower Apalachicola River, and through the Gulf states 

 to the valley of the Trinity River, Texas; of its largest size on the bottom-lands of the basin 

 of the lower Ohio River; southward and west of the Mississippi River less common and of 

 smaller size; on the Appalachian Mountains up to altitudes of 3800; the var. crassifolia 

 at Mt. Victory, Harding County, Ohio, Campbell, Dunklin County, Missouri, and near 

 Texarkana, Bowie County, Texas. 



Often planted in the eastern states as a shade and ornamental tree, and occasionally in 

 western and northern Europe. 



A form with the wing of the fruit extending nearly to the middle of the body distin- 

 guished as Fraxinus .Smallii Britt. has the appearance of a hybrid between F. americana 

 and F. pennsylvanica var. lanceolata; individuals of this form have been found near Mc- 

 Guire's Mill, on the Yellow River, Guinnett County, Georgia; near Rochester, Munroe 

 County, New York; and near Lake Wingra, Dane County, Wisconsin. 



9. Fraxinus texensis Sarg. Mountain Ash. 



Leaves 5'-8' long, with a long slender terete petiole, and 5 or occasionally 7 usually 

 long-stalked ovate broad-oval or obovate leaflets, rounded or acute, or often abruptly 

 pointed at apex, cuneate, rounded or slightly, cordate at base, and coarsely crenulate-ser- 

 rate, chiefly above the middle, light green slightly tinged with red and pilose with occa- 



Fig. 746 



sional pale caducous hairs when they unfold, and at maturity thick and firm, glabrous, dark 

 green on the upper surface, pale on the lower surface, l'-3' long and f '-2' wide, and occa- 

 sionally furnished below with tufts of long white hairs at the base of the broad midrib, and 



