Ridgway, in his Additional Notes on the Trees of the Wabash,’ says that Dr. J. Schneck of Mount Carmel measured a tree 92 feet high and 5 feet in girth; but when I visited the remains of this wonderful forest, in September 1904, I saw no ash trees of considerable size.
Pinchot and Ashe? say that the wood is inferior in quality to that of the white ash, but in North Carolina is not distinguished from it commercially.
Having raised a large quantity of plants from seed sent me as that of Fraxinus americana, which I did not identify as the green ash until Mr. F.V. Coville of Washington saw them growing in my nursery in 1904, I have distributed them to many friends as F. americana, and it is probable that the tree will thus become common in England under a wrong name, as has happened in so many cases before. For this mistake, which was unavoidable, I now apologise; but as the tree grows faster than any other American ash in a young state, and is likely to make useful poles, if not large trees, I have planted out some thousands of them at Colesborne.
Like all the American ashes which I have raised, the seed germinates quickly after sowing, and though liable to be injured by late frosts is at least as hardy as the common ash, When young the shoots continue to grow late in autumn and do not ripen their young wood, which for three to four years at least is liable to be killed back by winter frosts. Some of these seedlings are now, at four years old, 6 to 7 feet high and growing very vigorously. Michaux says that this species was introduced by his father to France in 1785, but I cannot hear of any surviving under this name.
Loudon says that at Stackpole Court, Pembrokeshire, it had in forty years attained a height of 60 feet, and had ripened seeds from which many plants had been raised and distributed in the plantations, but the Earl of Cawdor tells me that his gardener can find no trees in the woods which resemble the American ash, and that none of the men on the place can remember any peculiar ash trees there. In 1906 I also searched the woods at Stackpole without finding any trace of these trees. Loudon also mentions a tree in the garden of Pope’s villa at Twickenham, which no longer exists, There are several young trees in Kew Gardens; and the tallest, about 4o feet high, is widely branching in habit, differing remarkably from a white ash of the same height beside it, which has narrow branches and a straighter stem. Their foliage is also very different in colour. (H.J.E.)
FRAXINUS PENNSYLVANICA, Red Ash
- Fraxinus pennsylvanica, Marshall, Arb. Amer. 51 (1785); Sargent, Silva N. Amer. vi. 49, t. 271 (1894), and Trees N. Amer. 770 (1905).
- Fraxinus pubescens, Lamarck, Dict. ii, 548 (1786); Loudon, Arb. et Frut. Brit. ii. 1233 (1838).
A tree, attaining 60 feet in height and 5 feet in girth of stem. Bark brownish red and slightly furrowed, with scaly ridges. Young shoots stout, covered with
1 Proc. US. Nat, Mus. xvii. 411 (1894).
2 Timber Trees of North Carolina, 73.
