32 Woods ide. 



There are only two other trees whose leaves can possibly be 

 mistaken for those of the ash, but they, as a whole, are so 

 different, and belong to such different natural orders of 

 plants, that the mistake is inexcusable. One of these is the 

 elder, which resembles the ash in no other particular, the 

 other the mountain-ash, which has perhaps obtained its 

 popular name from its outward similarity. The stateliness 

 of the young ash has been noticed by the poet, who sings 



" She's stately as yon youthful ash, 

 That grows the cowslip braes atween, 

 And shoots its head aboon each bush." 



In the winter and early spring, before the leaves appear, 

 the tree is readily distinguished by the blackness of 



" Its buds, on either side opposed 

 In couples, each to each enclosed 

 In caskets black and hard as jet," 



and, as the spring advances, the ash is in no hurry to clothe 

 itself. In company with the oak, which also delays its 

 leafing as long as possible, the ash stands bare among the 

 fresh green foliage around it ; and from the fact that some- 

 times the ash, and at other times the oak, excels in the 

 dilatoriness with which it assumes its verdant mantle, a 

 weather rhyme has been formed, which runs as follows 



" If the oak is out before the ash. 

 'Twill be a summer of wet and splash : 

 But if the ash is before the oak, 

 'Twill be a summer of fire and smoke." 



As a matter of fact, it is very rarely that the oak does not 

 leaf before the ash in our southern woods, and as a condition 

 of splash is rather a characteristic of our variable climate, 

 the first assumption in the rhyme comes true; whether the 



