41 
COMMON EUROPEAN ASH. 
short, round buds, nearly black, like those of the Black Ash. The leaves, 
which consist of 4 or 5 pair of leaflets with an odd one, are opposite like 
the branches, of a dark green color, smooth, acuminate and slightly toothed. 
The flowers are not conspicuous and are united in bunches ; barren, fertile 
and hermaphrodite flowers are found 'upon the same tree. The seeds are 
of a lanceolate oval shape, and terminated by a flat wing, which is usually 
notched at the end : they are ripe toward the beginning of autumn. 
In the properties and uses of its wood the European Ash resembles the 
White Ash of America. In France handsome articles of furniture are 
made with the pieces immediately below the first ramification, and with 
the Knobs from the trunk of old trees, which exhibit more varied and more 
agreeable accidents in the direction of the fibres. The Common Ash is 
subject to be worm-eaten, and is rarely employed in building houses. It 
burns better than any other wood before it is seasoned, and affords excel- 
lent coal. 
In the Department of the Cantal, and in some other parts of France, 
the branches of the Ash are given both dry and green to sheep and cows, 
without imparting a disagreeable taste to the milk and butter. 
Spanish flies are very fond of the leaves of this tree, upon which they 
sometimes swarm in such numbers as to diffuse an offensive odor. 
The ancients, as we are informed by Pliny, believed that serpents had 
an antipathy to the Ash, and that they never approached it : this prejudice, 
which is still entertained, has given rise to the belief that a decoction of 
its roots or leaves in milk is an antidote for the poison of reptiles. 
The general utility of its wood causes great attention to be bestowed, in 
every part of Europe, upon the propagation of the Ash. For this purpose, 
nurseries are formed from the seed, and the young plants, at the age of 2 
or 3 years, are set out wherever the soil is cool and moist enough for their 
reception : they succeed well on uplands which are not too dry and sandy, 
or composed of too great a proportion of clay. 
There are several varieties of the European Ash, the most remarkable 
of which is the Drooping Ash ; its branches decline toward the earth, and 
the effect is peculiarly picturesque in solitary trees which have been formed 
by grafting this variety upon the Common Ash. 
Many medicinal properties have been ascribed to the Ash, and more 
accurate observations lead me to believe that if these virtues exist they can 
reside only in the inner bark, which is bitter and astringent. 
The White Ash and the Blue Ash of the United States are superior to 
the Common European Ash in the very properties for which this species is 
most esteemed ; there is no motive, therefore, for introducing it into the 
American woods : that it would flourish there is evinced by a beautiful 
example in the garden of Mr. W. Bartram in the vicinity of Philadelphia. 
Yol. III.— 7 
