DIANDRIA. MONOGYNIA. Cladium. 
8 ! 
Rev. R. Relhan names a variety with pendulous branches, or Weeping Ash, 
(Welsh: Anirywiaeth ymlaesawl ,) growing at Gamlingay, Cambridge¬ 
shire. Rev. Hugh Davies finds the same in Anglesey. E.)* 
(CLA'DIUM. Bloss. none: Glumes chaffy, sheathing; the 
outer ones empty : Drupa without bristles at the base. 
C. maris ; cus. Panicle repeatedly compound, leafy ; spikes capitate ,* 
straw cylindrical, smooth, leafy; leaves prickly on the margin 
and keel. 
E. Bot. 950.— Boccon. 72.2.— Lob. Ic. 76. l.—Ger. Em. 29.3 ,—C. B. Th. 
221.— J. B. ii. 504. 1.— H. Ox. viii. 11. f M<.-—Park. 1264.1.— Mich. 31.— 
Pseudo Cyp — Fructif. Scheuch. 8. 7—11. 
Stem four or five feet high, unbranched, beautifully striated. Lower 
leaves two feet long or more, taper-pointed. Spikes mostly two-flowered, 
rusty brown. One flower becomes perfect, and produces a fruit almost 
(planted about the year 1596, by Sir T. Nicholson, Lord Advocate, temp. James VI.) 
supposed to be the largest in Scotland ; in height ninety feet, in circumference, five feet 
from the ground, nineteen feet, and twenty-one feet girt at four feet higher : in full vigour 
in 1825. The rudiments of the future tree may be distinctly traced on dissecting the 
seed, even without a high magnifying power, presenting an interesting subject to the 
admirers of such phenomena. The wood hath the singular advantage of being nearly 
as valuable when young as when old. It is hard and tough, and is much used to 
make the tools employed in husbandry, carts, wains, &c.: for the wheelwright, maiden 
poles, the first cuttings are esteemed most valuable: the after stoles, which may be 
cut every few years, are not of so good quality. The ashes of the wood afford very 
good pot-ash. The bark is used for tanning calf-skin. A slight infusion of it appears 
of a pale yellowish colour when viewed between the eye and the light; but when 
looked down upon, or placed between the eye and an opake object, it is blue. This 
blueness is destroyed by tbs addition of an acid, and alkalies recover it again. An 
infusion of the leaves, from half an ounce to an ounce and a half, is a good purge, and 
a decoction of two drams of the bark, or of six drams of the leaves, has been given to 
cure agues. The Ash tree is judged by farmers to be peculiarly destructive to hedge 
rows. The seeds are acrid and bitter. In the church-yard of Lochaber, in Scotland, 
Dr. Walker measured the trunk of .a dead Ash tree, which at five feet from the 
surface of the ground, was fifty-eight feet in circumference. A more correct represen¬ 
tation of the peculiarly light and airy elegance of the Ash will scarcely be found, than 
that presented by Mr. H. W. Burgess, in his Eidodendron j a work to which, 
especially for pictorial effect, we have satisfaction in referring. 
Among the various operations of insects, all tending to a destined end, by en¬ 
forcing the inevitable law of nature—dust to dust— Ips niger, griseus, rufescens, and 
nebulosus, undertake the barking of the Ash : which tree also affords nourishment to 
Lucanus parallelopipedus, and cylindricus. Apion ( Curculio ) vorax, Synodendron cylin- 
dricum , and Livia Fraxini, are likewise often found upon the Ash : the Leopard Wood- 
Moth, Phalana prasinana, dominula, and Fraxini , and Chernies Fraxini, feed upon it. 
Of vegetable parasites, Hysterium Fraxini, Pers. ( Sphoeria sulcata of Bolt, and With.) 
may be often observed bursting through the bark of dead Ash branches, representing, as 
Albertini observes, the coffee bean in miniature, tumid, very black, disposed in a 
subconcentric manner, grooved longitudinally. Purt. 32. Grev. Scot. Crypt. 72. 
Sowerby, 315. And Cryptosphceria millepunctata. Grev. Scot. Crypt. 201. “ Perithecia 
numerous, immersed beneath the epidermis, subregularly scattered, globose, black, 
orifice very short, obtuse, scarcely exserted, thecm acute at the apex, the sporidia 
linear, curved,” is frequent on decaying small branches. E.) 
* (This approaches a kind, which the gardeners propagate by engrafting, and 
whose reversed branches, when at full liberty to extend themselves, form an agreeable 
umbrageous bower. A curled-leaved monstrosity is also sold at the nurseries. E.) 
vol. ir. Q 
