16 BULLETIN 299, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



soap berry, dogwood, with a dense undergrowth (in wetter situa- 

 tions) of elbow brush (Crataegus), poison ivy, wild grapevine, and 

 wire grasses. Green, pumpkin, and water ashes are often found 

 around the edges of sloughs or back swamps (upon which water 

 stands for from 9 to 12 months in a year) in mixture with cypress and 

 tupelo gum. Green ash is one of the most common species in the 

 very sparsely forested plains and prairie country of the Middle 

 West, growing almost entirely along streams in company with white 

 elm, cottonwood, willow, hackberry, sycamore, black cherry, and 

 bur oak. 



RED ASH. 



Red ash is a pubescent species of the green ash group occasionally 

 found along streams in the New England, Middle, Lake, and Central 

 States east of the Mississippi River. West of the Mississippi it is 

 often difficult to distinguish from green ash, with which it is appar- 

 ently connected by intermediate forms. 



PUMPKIN ASH. 



Pumpkin ash is a much more distinct pubescent species of the 

 green-ash group than is red ash, the seeds are much larger, and the 

 tree is more rapid growing in youth under the same conditions. It 

 has a very limited occurrence, however, and is usually found on the 

 wetter parts of overflow river bottoms, unfavorable to rapid deyel- 

 opment, where it is associated with the same trees as is green ash. It 

 has been observed in commercial quantities only in southeastern 

 Missouri, northeastern Arkansas, and in the eastern half of North 

 Carolina. It may be, geologically, an older species than green ash, but 

 nonaggressive from a reproductive standpoint and relegated to 

 undesirable sites. 



OREGON ASH. 



Oregon ash occurs along streams, in some cases reaching an eleva- 

 tion of 5,000 feet, though it usually stops at 3,000. It thrives on 

 gravelly flats with the water table near the surface. At low eleva- 

 tions it is associated with maple, oak, and willow. At higher eleva- 

 tions in the oak-digger-pine type and in the Douglas-fir-yellow-pino 

 type, its associates are willow, alder, maple, cottonwood, black oak, 

 yellow and digger pine, and Douglas fir. The largest trees and the 

 commercially important stands are in southwestern Oregon, in asso- 

 ciation with alder, broadleaf maple, and California laurel, on good 

 agricultural soils which are being rapidly cleared for farm land. 



LEATHERLEAF ASH. 



F. coriacea is tho species commonly named leatherleaf ash, although 

 F. velutina is also sometimes so called. Tho F. velutina is the more 

 abundant and occurs chiefly in New Mexico and Arizona, along 



