768 



TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



acute, apiculate, conspicuously keeled on the back, nearly black, slightly puberulous, 

 about one half the length of the scales of the second pair rather shorter than those 

 of the third pair, lengthening with the young shoots, and at maturity oblong-ovate, 

 narrowed and rounded at the apex, keeled, ' long, and rusty-pubescent, the scales 

 of the inner pair becoming ^' long, ovate, pointed, keeled, sometimes slightly pinna- 

 tifid, 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 sur- 

 face 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 implements, for the handles of tools, in carriage-building, for oars and 

 furniture, and in the interior 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 neighbor- 

 hood of streams; Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and southern Ontario to northern 

 Minnesota, southward to northern Florida, central Alabama, and Mississippi, and 

 westward to eastern Nebraska and Kansas, the Indian Territory, and 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. 



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

 ally in western and northern Europe. 



9. Fraxinus Texensis, Sarg. Mountain Ash. 



Leaves 5'-8' long, with elongated slender terete petioles, and 5 or occasionally 

 7 usually long-stalked ovate broadly oval or obovate leaflets, rounded or acute at 

 the apex, wedge-shaped, rounded or sometimes slightly cordate at the base, and 

 coarsely crenulate-serrate, chiefly above the middle, when they unfold light green 

 slightly tinged with red and pilose, with occasional pale caducous hairs, and at 

 maturity thick and firm, dark green on the upper surface, pale and sometimes 



silvery white on the lower surface, 2'-2-^' long and l'-2' wide, with broad midribs 

 often furnished below with tufts of short white hairs in the axils of the numerous 



