The Ashes and the Fringe Tree 



the spring, and "making up for it," as Oliver Goldsmith would 

 say, by losing them early in the fall. From the standpoint of 

 the landscape gardener, this is a double fault. But the cleanly 

 habit of the tree, its graceful head during the summer season, 

 and its valuable lumber, which is counted equal to white ash, 

 commend it to planters. It has been successfully introduced 

 into European gardens, and is hardy in the Arnold Arboretum 

 in Boston. 



It is interesting to note that an old tradition recorded by 

 Pliny has arisen, as if spontaneously, among the Indians of the 

 Pacific coast. Nuttall wrote after his visit to this region about 

 the time of the exodus to California in 1849: "An opinion 

 prevails in Oregon among the hunters and Indians that poisonous 

 serpents are unknown in the same tract of country where this 

 Ash grows, and stories are related of a stick of it causing the 

 Rattle Snake to retire with every mark of fear and trepidation, 

 and that it would sooner go into the fire than creep over it." 

 We certainly suspect that the hunters above mentioned, or per- 

 haps earlier white men visiting the region, imported the Old- 

 World tradition. 



The Pumpkin Ash (Fraxinus profunda, Bush.) is one of 

 the largest and most beautiful of our ash trees, and leads all 

 the others in the size of its leaves and keys. The velvety pubes- 

 cence of its young shoots and leaf linings might confuse it with 

 the red ash, but that its branchlets are stout. The leaves are 

 10 to 18 inches long, with broadly lanceolate leaflets, pointed and 

 wavy margined, leathery, with downy linings and leaf stalks. 

 The keys are 2^ to 3 inches long, with wings that broaden and 

 round at the tips. They are borne in large, pendulous and very 

 profuse clusters. 



This tree grows in deep river swamps in southeastern Missouri 

 and eastern Arkansas, and also in western Florida along the 

 Appalachicola River. It will probably be found in swamps 

 intermediate between these two regions. It has only been dis- 

 covered and named within the past eight years. Mr. Bush found 

 it first in 1893, and four years later gave it a name, profunda, 

 which probably refers to the almost bottomless bayous in which 

 it often grows. The common name, pumpkin ash, refers to the 

 bulging and ridged or buttressed base of the tree from which the 

 straight trunk rises. This is a character shared by other trees 



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