Fraxinus pennsylvanica was introduced into England in 1783"; and it is often met with in cultivation in public parks and botanic gardens, where it grows well as a small tree. One in the Botanic Garden at Oxford measures about 50 feet by 3 feet, and I have seen smaller trees at Stowe and elsewhere. I have raised it from American seed, and it seems to grow as fast as the white ash, but not so fast as the green ash. It ripens its wood better, and when young loses its leaves earlier than either of these.
Macoun says? that the red ash and the green ash are not separated com- mercially from the other species, the wood of the latter resembling that of the white ash, while that of the former is more like the black ash. Therefore there is some doubt whether Laslett, who writes of the Canadian ash, whose timber is often confounded with that of the white ash, is speaking of this tree or of the black ash which he does not mention. He says that it was, until recently, imported in consider- able quantity in the form of oars, and that it is reddish brown in colour, considerably darker than the wood of the English ash. (H.J.E.)
FRAXINUS OREGONA, Oregon Ash
- Fraxinus oregona, Nuttall, Sylva, iii. 59, t. 99 (1849); Sargent, Silva N. Amer. vi. 57, t. 276 (1894), and Trees N. Amer. 776 (1905).
A tree attaining 80 feet in height and a girth of stem of 12 feet. Bark deeply divided by interrupted fissures into broad flat scaly ridges. Young shoots stout, covered with dense white tomentum, which persists in the second year; lenticels white, inconspicuous. Leaflets (Plate 263, Fig. 15), 3 to 4 inches long, subsessile, usually seven, sometimes five or nine, oval, about twice as long as broad, base rounded or abruptly tapering, apex acute or shortly acuminate; margin entire or minutely and remotely crenate, ciliate ; upper surface with scattered fine pubescence; lower surface covered with dense white tomentum. Rachis white tomentose, with a distinct shallow groove on its upper side, basal part wide and flattened.
Flowers (section Leptalix) dicecious in glabrous panicles rising out of the axils of the preceding year’s shoot; calyx present, persisting under the fruit, corolla absent. Fruit obovate-oblong; body slightly compressed; wing long, decurrent, many-nerved, and rounded, apiculate or emarginate at the apex.
Fraxinus oregona can only be confused with sessile forms of F. pennsylvanica, which has longer serrate leaflets, with more nerves, tapering gradually to the base. In F. oregona the leaflets are shorter in proportion to their breadth, and are usually entire in margin; but this last character is not absolutely distinctive, as the leaflets of the two species vary in regard to the presence or absence and size of the serrations.
1 Aiton, Hort. Kew. v. 476 (1813).
2 Forest Wealth of Canada, p. 23.
