conical, usually glabrous, with four outer scales—six external scales, however, occurring in individual trees with leaves in whorls of threes.
Varieties
1. Var. monophylla’ (F. Veltheimi, Dieck). A form in which the leaves (Plate 262, Fig. 3) are simple, unequally two-foliolate, or three-foliolate ; terminal leaflet or single leaf lanceolate, acuminate, coarsely serrate or dentate; lateral leaflets, when present, much smaller but similar in shape; petiole with a wide open groove on the upper side. Shoots green, glabrous, with pink lenticels.
This variety can only be confused with Fraxinus excelsior, var. monophylla, from which it is readily distinguishable by the glabrous leaflets, different in texture and usually narrower, being lanceolate and not ovate. This tree appears to do well in cultivation, but will probably not attain a large size. We know of no trees of this variety in England except in the collection at Kew.
2. Var. lentiscifolia (F. lentiscifolia, Desfontaines’?). In the typical form of F. angustifolia, both as it occurs wild and under cultivation, the leaflets are set close upon a short rachis and point forwards towards its apex. In this variety, the leaflets are set wide apart upon an elongated rachis, from which they spread out at right angles and are not directed forwards; they also differ slightly in colour and texture from the type.
Willdenow® considered F. parvifolia, Lamarck,’ F. tamariscifolia, Vahl,’ and F. lentiscifolia, Desfontaines,’ to be identical. I have not been able to follow Koehne or Dippel in their treatment of these forms as distinct. It is not in the least certain what species was intended by Lamarck’s parvifolia, a name which has been given by some writers to a small-leaved variety of F. oxycarpa. In the Kew Herbarium, a garden specimen, collected by Bentham in 1854 and labelled “F. lentiscifolia,” agrees with our variety of F. angustifolia; and a wild specimen from Italy is indistinguishable from it.
Both pendulous and dwarf forms of var. lentiscifolia are known in cultivation.
Distribution
The narrow-leaved ash, with glabrous leaves, is common in the south of France, and occurs also in Spain, Portugal, Morocco,” and Algeria.
Captain Widdrington ° says of this tree: “The ash is extraordinarily rare in the south and central regions of Spain. It is not now cultivated, and the only specimens I saw growing wild were in the wilder parts of Estremadura and the Sierra Morena where they were generally by the side of water-courses. The only species that I have seen in these regions is the lentiscifolia. The first year that I was in the
1 Stated in the Kew Hand List of Trees, 545 (1902), to be a cross between F. parvifolia and F. excelsior monophylla. It shows no evidence of hybrid origin, and is evidently a variety of F. angustifolia.
2 Table de l' École de Bot. 52 (1804).
3 Sp. Pl. iv. 2, 1101 (1805).
4 Encycl. ii. 546 (1786).
5 Enum. i. 52 (1804).
6 Table de l’ École de Bot. 52 (1804).
7 This ash, referred to F. oxyphylla by Ball, was seen by him in Morocco, between Tangiers and Tetuan, and also at the base of the Atlas mountains, Cf. Journ. Linn. Soc. (Bot.) xvi. 564 (1878).
8 Spain and the Spaniards, i. 390 (1844).
