9o8 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 



Ridgway, in his Additional Notes on the Trees of the Wabash^ says that Dr. 

 J. Schneck of Mount Carmel measured a tree 92 feet high and 5 feet in girth ; but 

 when I visited the remains of this wonderful forest, in September 1904, I saw no 

 ash trees of considerable size. 



Pinchot and Ashe'' say that the wood is inferior in quality to that of the 

 white ash, but in North Carolina is not distinguished from it commercially. 



Having raised a large quantity of plants from seed sent me as that of 

 Fraxinus americana, which I did not identify as the green ash until Mr. F. V. Coville 

 of Washington saw them growing in my nursery in 1904, I have distributed 

 them to many friends as F. americana, and it is probable that the tree will thus 

 become common in England under a wrong name, as has happened in so many cases 

 before. For this mistake, which was unavoidable, I now apologise ; but as the tree 

 grows faster than any other American ash in a young state, and is likely to make 

 useful poles, if not large trees, I have planted out some thousands of them at 

 Colesborne. 



Like all the American ashes which I have raised, the seed germinates quickly 

 after sowing, and though liable to be injured by late frosts is at least as hardy as the 

 common ash. When young the shoots continue to grow late in autumn and do not 

 ripen their young wood, which for three to four years at least is liable to be killed 

 back by winter frosts. Some of these seedlings are now, at four years old, 6 to 7 

 feet high and growing very vigorously. Michaux says that this species was 

 introduced by his father to France in 1785, but I cannot hear of any surviving 

 under this name. 



Loudon says that at Stackpole Court, Pembrokeshire, it had in forty years 

 attained a height of 60 feet, and had ripened seeds from which many plants had been 

 raised and distributed in the plantations, but the Earl of Cawdor tells me that his 

 gardener can find no trees in the woods which resemble the American ash, and that 

 none of the men on the place can remember any peculiar ash trees there. In 1906 I 

 also searched the woods at Stackpole without finding any trace of these trees, 

 Loudon also mentions a tree in the garden of Pope's villa at Twickenham, which 

 no longer exists. There are several young trees in Kew Gardens ; and the tallest, 

 about 40 feet high, is widely branching in habit, differing remarkably from a white 

 ash of the same height beside it, which has narrow branches and a straighter stem. 

 Their foliage is also very different in colour. (H. J. E.) 



FRAXINUS PENNSYLVANICA, Red Ash 



Fraxinus pennsylvanica, Marshall, Arb. Amer. 51 (1785); Sargent, Silva N. Amer. vi. 49, t 271 



(1894), and Trees N. Amer. 770 (1905). 

 Fraxinus pubescens, Lamarck, Did. ii. 548 (1786); Loudon, Arb. et Frut. Brit. ii. 1233 (1838). 



A tree, attaining 60 feet in height and 5 feet in girth of stem. Bark brownish 

 red and slightly furrowed, with scaly ridges. Young shoots stout, covered with 



' Proc. U.S. Nat. Mus. xvii. 411 (1894). 2 Timber Trees of North Carolina, 73. 



