483 
between the rows, at least once a year; but be careful not to cut or bruise the roots, and never to 
dig the ground in summer, when it is hot and dry. 
The Beech will prosper on stony, barren soils; but then the nursery for the young plants ought 
to be upon the same soil: for if they be raised in a good soil and a warm exposure, and afterwards 
transplanted into a bleak barren situation, they seldom thrive. 
Mr. Young informs us, in his Irish Tour, that Mr. Mahon made a plantation of all sorts of forest 
trees in his park, in order to see how far the deer would let them escape. They devoured every 
tree except the Beech, not one of which they touched, either leaf, branch, or bark. Many of his 
Beeches, not more than thirty years growth, were three or four feet in girt, and from thirty to forty 
feet high. 
Genus 18. Fothergilla. Fothergilla . Class XIII. Polyandria* 
Order II. Digynia. 
Species 1 . Broad-leaved Fothergilla. (Fothergilla Alnifolia Obtusa.) 
This tree has a great appearance to the Alder. It is a native of North America, and was intro¬ 
duced in 1765 by Mr. John Bush. It is flowers from April to June. 
CULTURE. 
It is raised from seed brought from America in sand. 
Genus 19. Fraxinus. Ash-tree . Class XXIII. Polygamia. 
Order. Dioecia, et Trioecia. 
Species 1 . Common Ash-tree . (Fraxinus Excelsior.) 
The leaves have generally five pair of leaflets, and one odd one, of a dark green. The flowers 
are produced in loose spikes from the side of the branches, and are succeeded by flat seeds which 
ripen in autumn. 
The lateral buds produce the flowers, and the terminating one the leaves.* 
Bractes linear, one on the outside at the base of each pedicel. Filaments broad and flat, not so 
long at the anthers, which are of a blackish purple colour.^- There are not only bisexual and female 
flowers, but also male ones, so that this species should seem referable to the order trioecia.J Care 
should be taken in observing the flowers; for in those which are bisexual, the germ which lies 
between the two stamens, does not grow up till some days after they appear, so that at first they 
appear to be male flowers. What Linnseus calls a seed, others call a capsule; the seed being 
covered with a leathery kind of crust, which does not split or open. 
The varieties of the common Ash-tree are, 1 . That with simple leaves, which, however, some¬ 
times has them lobed and even ternate. 2 . With pendulous branches, called the Weeping Ash. I 
have for near forty years known a very fine tree growing naturally so, at G amlingay in Cambridge¬ 
shire; and it is not uncommon in trees of considerable age, especially when growing by the water 
X Stokes in With. 
* Linn. Spec. 
•f* Withering. 
