WHITE ASH 
slightly drooping poise of its leaves, and the soft, rich, mellow 
green of its foliage unite to attract ouradmiration. Its spray 
is clumsy compared with that of the beech and the maple. 
Although the leaves are tufted at the end of the spray, the 
branches are not bare; on the contrary such is the flowing, 
clinging effect of its foliage that the tree may be said in a 
peculiar degree to be clothed with its leaves. The trunk rises 
more than an average height before it divides and after the 
division still retains a central shaft, yet this shaft disappears 
from sight as soon as it enters the mass of foliage, and can- 
not be traced through the leafy head. 
The autumnal tints are most unusual and most beautiful. 
Wilson Flagg in “ A Year Among the Trees” writes concern- 
ing them: “ The colors of the ash are quite unique, and dis- 
tinguish it from all other trees. Under favorable circum- 
stances its coloring process isnearly uniform. It begins with 
a general impurpling of the whole mass of foliage nearly at 
the same time and the gradual changes remind me of those 
observed in sea mosses during the process of bleaching. 
There is an invariable succession in these tints as in the 
brightening beams of morn. They are first of a dark bronze, 
turning from this to a chocolate, then to a violet brown, and 
finally to a salmon color or yellow with a shade of lilac. 
When the leaves are faded nearly yellow, they are ready to 
drop from the tree. It is remarkable that with all this vari- 
ety of hues neither crimson nor any shade of scarlet is ever 
seen in the ash. Jt ought to be remembered that the grada- 
tions of autumn tints in all cases are in the order of those of 
sunrise, from dark to lighter hues, and never the reverse. I 
make no reference to the browns of dead leaves which are 
darker than yellow or orange, from which they turn. I speak 
only of the changes of leaves before they are seared or dry.” 
Two traditions follow the ash tree. They have come to 
us from Europe and their origin seems lost in the mists of 
antiquity. One is that no serpent willingly glides beneath 
its branches or rests under its shade. ‘This belief was old in 
Pliny’s time, for he states as a fact that if a serpent be placed 
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