146 



THE ASH. 



appendage affords to the seed of the Asli, we are 

 to account for the appearance of trees in the very 

 strange situations in which they are sometimes 

 found J springing, for instance, from church towers, 

 ruins, and crags inaccessible to man. Dr. Plott, 

 in his Natural History of Oxfordshire^ mentions 

 a singular instance of this vegetable wayward- 

 ness : An Ash-key rooted itself on a decayed 

 willow", and finding, as it increased, a deficiency 

 of nourishment in the mother plant, began to 

 insinuate its fibres by degrees, through the trunk 

 of the willow, into the earth. There, receiving 

 an additional recruit, it began to thrive and ex- 

 pand itself to such a size, that it burst the willow 

 in pieces, which fell away from it ; and what 

 was before the root of the Ash, being now exposed 

 to the air, became the solid trunk of a vigorous 

 tree." 



Ash-keys were held in high repute by the ancient 

 physicians for their medicinal properties. They 

 were also preserved with salt and vinegar, and sent 

 to table as a sauce, w^hen, says Evelyn, being 

 pickled tender they afford a delicate salading." 



From a foreign species of Ash, Fraxinus ornus, 

 of Linnaeus, Ornus Europcea of modern authors, 

 is procured a substance which, from its appear- 

 ance somewhat according with the description of 

 the miraculous food of the Israelites in the wilder- 

 ness, is called Manna. This substance is chiefly ' 

 collected in Calabria and Sicily; where, according ^ 

 to the Materia Medica of Geoffrey, the manna 

 runs of itself from the trunks of some trees, while i 

 it does not flow from others, unless wounds are 

 made in the bark. Those trees which yield the 

 manna spontaneously grow in the most favourable 



