- 37. Fraxinus holotricha, Koehne. Origin unknown. See p. 887.
- Leaflets nine to thirteen, lanceolate or ovate-lanceolate, about 2 inches long, sharply serrate. (A.H.)
FRAXINUS EXCELSIOR, Common Ash
- Fraxinus excelsior, Linnæus, Sp. Pl 1057 (175 3); Loudon, Arb. et Frut. Brit. ii, 1214 (1838); Willkomm, Forstliche Flora, 658 (1897); Mathieu, Flore Forestière, 241 (1897).
A large tree, attaining 140 feet in height. Bark smooth and greyish when young, becoming rough and fissured in old trees. Branchlets glabrous. Leaflets (Plate 262, Fig. 4), 9 to 15, sessile and articulate, oval- or oblong-lanceolate, acuminate at the apex, tapering at the base, where the margin is entire, elsewhere crenately serrate, the serrations more numerous than the lateral nerves; upper surface glabrous and green; lower surface paler with pubescence on the midrib, extending over the basal part of the leaflet ; venation pinnate, the lateral nerves forming loops near the margin. Rachis glabrous or pubescent, strongly winged, the wings meeting above,’ except opposite the insertion of the leaflets where there is an open channel, and below the leaflets where the rachis is flattened or broadly grooved.
Flowers,’ opening before the leaves appear, fertilised by the wind, in dense axillary panicles, polygamous or occasionally dicecious, without calyx or corolla. Male flowers with two stamens more or less connate below. Female flowers with a two-celled superior ovary, the style being dilated above into two thick stigmas. Perfect flowers with an ovary and two stamens.’
Fruit, of two carpels, joined together to form the body of the samara, which is compressed at right angles to the partition and is produced in front into a veined membranous wing. The samarz are very variable in shape, but are usually linear-oblong or elliptic, obtuse at both ends, and notched at the tip. They hang in racemes on long stalks, and, ripening in autumn, generally remain on the tree till the following spring; and are ultimately carried by the wind a short distance away from the parent tree.
Seedling4
The young plant on appearing raises the samara out of the soil, the two cotyledons being united together at first by a cap formed of the albumen. The
1 Rain collecting on the leaflets drains into the ducts thus formed, inside of which are hairs and peltate groups of cells
that gradually absorb the water, which is retained for several days after a fall of rain. See Kerner, Nat. Hist, Plants, Eng. Transl. i. 231, fig. 54 (1898).
2 Section Fraxinaster.
3 Schulz, in Ber. Deutsch. Bot. Ges. x. 401 (1892), has shown that trees of the common ash greatly vary in the kind of flowers which they produce. Trees bearing only male flowers are common; while those with only female flowers or with only perfect flowers are rare. In many cases two of the three kinds of flowers are borne on the same tree ; and what is very remarkable, a tree is not necessarily of the same sex in successive years. Ash trees do not flower, as a rule, regularly every year ; and fruit is much more abundant in some years than in others.
4 Figured in Lubbock, Seedlings, ii. 214, fig. 512 (1892).
