XV. 2. THE RED ASH. 337 
Sp. 2. Tse Rep Ass. IF. pubescens. Walter. 
Figured in Michaux, Sylva, III, Plate 119. 
In its appearance, the red ash so strongly resembles the white, 
that it is usually confounded with it. It is easily distinguished 
by the down on the recent branches and on the footstalks and 
lower surface of the leaves. 'The distinction 1s important, as 
the wood is less valuable than that of the white. It is found 
in nearly the same situations, delighting in a moist, nich, loamy 
soil, where it grows to a good size, though never to so great a 
height as the white ash. On the rich intervale land on the 
Connecticut River and its tributaries, it is often found over 
three feet in diameter, and fifty or sixty feet high. A few rods 
south of the great Celtis, in Springfield, I measured one in Sep- 
tember, 1840. which was ten feet four inches in circumference 
at the surface, and nine feet at three feet above. The red ash 
is a spreading, broad-headed tree, and rises to a considerable 
height only in the forest. The trunk is erect and branching, 
covered with a dark ashy or granite gray bark, with numer- 
ous longitudinal. superficial furrows, not often running into 
each other. 
The branches are opposite, grayish, conspicuously dotted, the 
younger ones green, or olive green; and the recent shoots, with 
the footstalks and under surface of the leaves, clothed with a 
soft, velvety, grayish or rusty down. 
The last year’s shoots are somewhat downy in appearance, 
but not in reality. Near their extremity, in the axils of the last 
year’s leaves, are the flower branches. They are, when the 
fruit is mature, three or four inches long, single, or in threes, 
dividing by nearly opposite divisions, and subdividing, the sub- 
divisions bearing at intervals single or double pairs of fruit or 
keys, on short, thread-like stems. The keys are one and a half 
or two inches long, and two or three lines broad, cylindrical 
below, broader, fiat and thin above, rounded and with some- 
times an abrupt point at theextremity. Closely adhering to the 
base is the slit calyx, ending in four jagged teeth. 
The leaves are opposite, ten to fifteen inches long, consisting 
44 
