THE ASHES 203 



young branches and the bark is gray. The fohage has 

 white lining and each of the seven leaflets has a short stalk. 

 These are all characters that distinguish the white ash 

 from other species and enable one to name it at a 

 glance. In the South the white ash is undersized and the 

 wood is of poor quality. In the Northeastern and Central 

 states it is one of the most important and largest of our 

 timber trees, with wood more valuable than any other ash. 

 Its uses are manifold: it is staple in the manufacture of 

 agricultural implements, carriages, furniture, and in the 

 interior iSnish of buildings. Tool handles and oars are 

 made of white ash and it is superior as fuel. The reddish- 

 brown heart-wood, with paler sap-wood, is tough, elastic, 

 hard, and heavy. It is not durable in soil and becomes 

 brittle with age. 



Ash trees are late in coming into leaf. \Mien all the 

 forest is green and full of blossoms, the ash trees are still 

 naked. Not until ]^.Iay do the rusty yellow winter buds of 

 the white ash swell and throw out on separate trees their 

 staminate and pistillate flower clusters from the axils of 

 last year's foliage. (See illustration, page SI 4..) Then the 

 leaves unfold; downy at first, becoming bright and shiny 

 above, but always with pale linings. On fertile trees the 

 inconspicuous flowers mature into pointed fruits, one to 

 two inches long. The wing is twice the length of the seed 

 and is rounded to a blunt point. The seed itself is round 

 and pointed, on branching stalks that form clusters from 

 six to eight inches long. 



As a street tree the white ash deserves much more 

 general favor in cities than it has yet achieved, for it is 

 straight and symmetrical, and its light foliage grows in 

 irregular, wavy masses, through which some sunlight can 



