ARKANSAS ASH 



cu. ft. Hardness Grade 5, compare English Ash. Smell and 

 taste little, if any. 



Grain. Very coarse and open in regular bands. Surface 

 bright, often lustrous, with a kind of horny, natural polish on 

 the denser bands when planed. 



Bark. Corky, §-1 inch thick, fissured deeply : light brown : 

 beautifully reticulated in transverse section. 



Uses, etc. Chiefly as a substitute for English Ash, to which 

 it is inferior : wagon-building, oars. " Very strong, stiff yet 

 elastic, much easier to work than the English species : becomes 

 brittle with age. Tough, elastic, . . . felloes, carriage-frames, 

 cues, rods, handles, . . . the young wood much the best, . . . 

 soon rots in the damp or in wet-and-dry " (95). 



Authorities. Nordlinger (87), p. 520. Ditto (86), vol. i. p. 93. 

 Hough (49), pt. i. p. 54. Laslett (60), p. 176. Holtzapffel (48), 

 p. 73. Stevenson (113), p. 29. Sargent (100). Macoun (66), 

 p. 317. C. Robb (95). Wiesner (191). L. 6, p. 133. 



Colour. Brownish or light-reddish heart-wood, well defined 

 from the nearly white sap-wood, of which one of my specimens 

 has 29 rings. 



Anatomical Characters. Transverse section. As F. excelsior, 

 No. 140, with the following variations : — 



Pores. Very prominent, size 1-2, rather coarse, very variable, 

 diminishing (not very abruptly) from the Spring pore-ring out- 

 wards : large pores of pore-rings, 3-5 rows deep and 4-17 per sq. 

 mm. : the smaller 12-20 per sq. mm. 



Rings. Very prominent. Boundary, a narrow line of dense 

 Autumn wood accompanied by the conspicuous ring of pores : 

 no other contrast between Spring and Autumn wood. 



Ground-tissue. Dense throughout the ring : uniform. 



Flecks. Rare, like brown linear stains, *fc-\ inch long in the 

 early Spring wood. 



Pith. Oval : 1-1*5 mm. wide. 



Type specimens authenticated by Hough and from commercial 

 sources. 



No. 143. ARKANSAS ASH. Fraxinus platycarpa. 



Michx. 

 Plate X. Fig. 88. 



Natural Order. Oleacese. 



Synonyms. F. caroliniana, Mill. F. excelsior, Watt. F. 

 americana, Marsh. F. pallida, Bosc. F. americana, var. caro- 

 liniana. Browne., etc, etc. 



Alternative Names. Water Ash. American Ash (100). 



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