356 
DECIDUOUS TREES. 
latter having still smaller and more numerous leaflets, numbering 
from nine to eleven on each leaf. 
The C. microcarpa is a variety closely resembling the shell-bark 
hickory in its leaves, which, though smaller, are composed of five 
leaflets, and in its small thin-shelled nut ; but its bark is like that 
of the thick-shelled hickory. It is abundant in the forests of New 
Jersey and Pennsylvania. 
The Pecan-nut, C. olivceformis., is not found much north of 
the Ohio river valley; south, it becomes a large and beautiful 
tree. Its nuts are long, pointed, and thin-shelled, and considered 
by some persons the most delicate of all the hickories. We do 
not consider them any better than those of the shell-bark hickory. 
The tree resembles the water bitter-nut hickory, with thirteen to 
fifteen leaflets to the leaf. 
THE ASH. Fraxinus. 
The ash is a common forest tree all over the United States, but 
its varieties are less interesting than those of many other species. 
In the forest the trees are lofty, with straight stems and slender 
limbs. In open ground they are generally round-headed or 
ovate, of tolerably abundant foliage, but late in leaf, and less 
pleasing in color than many other trees. It is also noted for ex- 
hausting the soil to such an extent as to injure the lawn under its 
branches. 
The White Ash. F. americana . — This is the finest and loftiest 
of the family. It has a straight trunk, occasionally rising in the 
forest to one hundred feet, with light-colored or gray bark, latticed 
into ridges and deep furrows. The branches are clean, straight, 
numerous, and rarely large, and issue from the trunk at an acute 
angle. 
It is a refined, but not a majestic tree, without its leaves. In 
leaf it is occasionally a superb tree, symmetrically globular or ovate, 
with abundant foliage, of a dull or bluish-green color. The head 
does not break into fine masses until the tree is old. In autumn 
