864 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 



37. Fraxinus holotricha, Koehne. Origin unknown. See p. 887. 



Leaflets nine to thirteen, lanceolate or ovate-lanceolate, about 2 inches long^ 

 sharply serrate. ^ ■ "'' 



FRAXINUS EXCELSIOR, Common Ash 



Fraodnus excelsior, Linnseus, Sp. PI. 1057 (i7S3); Loudon, Arh. et Frut. Brit. ii. 1214 (1838); 

 Willkomm, Forstliche Flora, 658 (1897); Mathieu, More Forestiire, 241 (1897). 



A large tree, attaining 140 feet in height. Bark smooth and greyish when 

 young, becoming rough and fissured in old trees. Branchlets glabrous. Leaflets 

 (Plate 262, Fig. 4), 9 to 15, sessile and articulate, oval- or oblong-lanceolate, 

 acuminate at the apex, tapering at the base, where the margin is entire, elsewhere 

 crenately serrate, the serrations more numerous than the lateral nerves; upper 

 surface glabrous and green ; lower surface paler with pubescence on the midrib, 

 extending over the basal part of the leaflet ; venation pinnate, the lateral nerves 

 forming loops near the margin. Rachis glabrous or pubescent, strongly winged, 

 the wings meeting above,^ except opposite the insertion of the leaflets where there 

 is an open channel, and below the leaflets where the rachis is flattened or broadly 

 grooved. 



Flowers,^ opening before the leaves appear, fertilised by the wind, in dense 

 axillary panicles, polygamous or occasionally dioecious, without calyx or corolla. 

 Male flowers with two stamens more or less connate below. Female flowers with 

 a two-celled superior ovary, the style being dilated above into two thick stigmas. 

 Perfect flowers with an ovary and two stamens.' 



Fruit, of two carpels, joined together to form the body of the samara, which 

 is compressed at right angles to the partition and is produced in front into a 

 veined membranous wing. The samarse are very variable in shape, but are usually 

 linear-oblong or elliptic, obtuse at both ends, and notched at the tip. They hang in 

 racemes on long stalks, and, ripening in autumn, generally remain on the tree till the 

 following spring ; and are ultimately carried by the wind a short distance away from 

 the parent tree. 



Seedling* 



The young plant on appearing raises the samara out of the soil, the two 

 cotyledons being united together at first by a cap formed of the albumen. The 



' Rain collecting on the leaflets drains into the ducts thus formed, inside of which are hairs and peltate groups of cells 

 that gradually absorb the water, which is retained for several days after a fall of rain. See Kemer, Nat. Hist. Plants, Eng. 

 Transl. i. 231, fig. 54 (1898). 2 Section Fraxinaster. 



' Schulz, in Ber. Deutsch. Bot. Ges. x. 401 (1892), has shown that trees of the common ash greatly vary in the kind of 

 flowers which they produce. Trees bearing only male flowers are common ; while those with only female flowers or with 

 only perfect flowers are rare. In many cases two of the three kinds of flowers are borne on the same tree ; and what is very 

 remarkable, a tree is not necessarily of the same sex in successive years. Ash trees do not flower, as a rule, regularly every 

 year ; and fruit is much more abundant in some years than in others. 



* Figured in Lubbock, Seedlings, ii. 214, fig. 512 (1892). 



