Ash tree

“ Then as to wind exposure, what tree can compare with the ash for length and strength of anchorage against the gale? It is astonishing to what distance it sends its tough roots, whether they run through free soil or wind themselves into the crevices of limestone rock. This far-ranging habit renders it the worst of all neighbours to a garden, and no ash tree should be suffered to grow within fifty yards of ground where herbs or fruit are cultivated. ”

“ But the Ash tree leaves are among the first to fall. Whenever the cold winds come they wither, and a single night of frost will strew them in hundreds on the ground. Where the leaf stalk joined the twig you will see a curious scar (5) shaped like a horse-shoe, and next year a black bud will appear inside this scar. The Ash tree will live for several hundred years. It is not fully grown up till it is forty or fifty years old, and till then you will not find any bunches of keys, with their seeds, growing on the tree. ”

“ A far more beautiful tree, gracing equally the forest and the way-side, is the Ash, charming our sight with the gracefulness of its proportions in winter, with its flowing drapery of verdure in summer, and its variety of glowing tints in autumn. The Ash has been styled in Europe "the painter's tree,"—a fact which is worthy of notice, inasmuch as those writers who have theorized concerning the nature of beauty have generally regarded trees of broken and irregular shapes, like the Hickory, as more picturesque than those of prim and symmetrical habit, like the Ash. ”

“ Notice that the ground beneath the branches of the Ash tree is usually bare. Many of its roots spread out to a great distance close below the surface, and they are so greedy, and require so much nourishment for the tree, that there is none left for other plants. Some farmers think that the raindrops which drip from the feathery Ash leaves are hurtful to other plants, so they are unwilling to plant Ash trees in their fields and hedgerows. ”

“ You will see the oak shaved up on the side of the breeze. But the ash stands upright, as if in a warm woody dell. We have no tree that attains a greater height than the ash; and certainly none that equals it in beauty of leaf. It bears pruning better than any other tree. Its timber is one of the most useful; and as underwood and fire-wood it far exceeds all others of English growth. From the trees of an avenue like that of Lord Hardwicke a hundred pounds worth of fuel might, if the trees were ash, be cut every year in prunings necessary to preserve the health and beauty of the trees. ”

“ A scholar, duly imbued with mysticism, might, haply, trace and connect sundry poetical and widely-spread superstitious allusions to the ash. Moor says: “Only one peculiarity in it occurs to me; this is, that the wood of young ash is as tough, hard, and durable as of old: of seven years as of seventy. This, with a certain class might seem a type or symbol of youth and age. In common with the sycamore, the ash tree bears, and is propagated, by a key, as we and certain other nations call the seed.” ”

“ This is the feather type of compound leaf, seen in the locust family, and among walnuts and hickories.
Ash trees are recognised by their opposite compound leaves. There is another sign: the fruit has a dry seed, pointed and winged like a dart. There is no other seed exactly like those of the ash. The seed clusters hang on the bare twigs, far into winter. The twigs are stout, and set in pairs on the branches. The trees grow large, and their tops are regular and handsome. The bark is close, broken by shallow fissures into small, often diamond-shaped plates. ”

“ Every boy who has owned a rowboat knows that oars are made of wood from the ash. This is because the oar must be elastic as well as strong, and the timber of the ash tree supplies these two qualities. The ash is one of our tallest and noblest forest trees. It is rather slim in build, with beautiful clean shiny green foliage. The members of this group seem to be fond of colors, and we have the white ash, red ash, green ash, blue ash, and black ash. ”

“ The roots of this mythological tree penetrated the earth to its lowest depths and its giant top supported the heavens. Wisdom and knowledge gushed from its base as from a fountain, and underneath were the abodes of the gods, giants, and the Fates. Superstitions of all kinds have come down with the language of different peoples, making the history of the ash tree a most interesting study. ”

“ There are slight differences in the leaves and seeds, but, as in other trees, when we have once seen an ash seed we can always thereafter distinguish an ash tree. Fig. 102 shows the seed of the red ash. It is a winged seed, with the seed part inclosed by the wing.
Fig. 102. Red Ash
The compound leaf of the white ash has from five to seven leaflets and the black ash has from seven to [93] eleven. The wood is hard, tough, and elastic, has a handsome grain, and is used for many purposes besides making oars, such as furniture, carriages, and those farm implements which require strength. ”

“ The ash tree, also, had its worshippers among the dwellers in high northern latitudes, and it was under the dense branches of an enormous ash tree that terrible Odin and his following of deities appeared in a dark cloud.
Thus Tree worship appeared once more. It has ever since continued to flourish more or less in Germany, and even now exists to a certain extent. But it is not the oaks, nor the beech, nor the elm, nor the ash tree, which in our day receives the worship of the young especially—but the lime tree. ”

“ When the wind loosens one from the wiry stem, it goes like an arrow, seed downward. If there is a gale blowing, the seed may be caught up and borne far away in the upper air, before a lull lets it take a downward course, and drive its point into a snowbank, or into the ground. This little feathered arrow may be long or short, depending upon whether it belongs to the red ash, the white ash, or the black; but there is no mistaking an ash tree for any other, once the form of an ash seed is fixed in the mind. ”

“ The red ash is very much like the white, but the wood is less valuable. It is a spreading, broad-headed tree, and the trunk is erect and branching. It is not so tall as the black ash, yet its trunk is three times as thick. ”

“ It is by no means convenient to plant ash in plow-lands; for the roots will be obnoxious to the coulter; and the shade of the tree is malignant both to corn and grass, when the head and branches over-drip and emaciate ’em; but in hedge-rows and plumps, they will thrive exceedingly, where they may be dispos’d at nine or ten foot distance, and sometimes nearer: But in planting of a whole wood of several kinds of trees for timber, every third set at least, would be an ash. The best ash delights in the best land (which it will soon impoverish) yet grows in any ”

“ The seed itself is round and pointed, on branching stalks that form clusters from six to eight inches long.
As a street tree the white ash deserves much more general favor in cities than it has yet achieved, for it is straight and symmetrical, and its light foliage grows in irregular, wavy masses, through which some sunlight can [Pg 204] always sift and let grass grow under the tree. This tree is a rapid grower, perfectly hardy in most sections of the country, and has no serious insect enemies. The foliage turns to brownish purple and yellow in the autumn. ”

“ There are several species--the white, red, black and mountain ash. The white ash is a graceful tree, rising in the forest to the height of seventy or eighty feet, with a straight trunk and a diameter of three feet or more at the base. On an open plain it throws out its branches, with a gentle double curvature, to a distance on every side, and forms a broad, round head of great beauty. The flowers of the ash are greenish white in color and appear with the leaves in loose clusters. 'The trunk of our largest American ash is covered with a whitish bark which in very young trees is nearly smooth ”

“ The saplings are oftenest chosen for hop and bean poles.
As a lawn tree, the black ash has little to recommend it for it often dies of thirst in the loam of a garden. At best it is short-lived. Planted in swampy ground, the tree spreads by seeds, and suckers from the roots, soon forming extensive thickets, and drinking up the moisture at a marvelous rate. ”

“ How, indeed, could it possess much ash when it flourishes in positions where scarcely four inches of soil covers up the oolitic stone, its roots spreading over the rock and occasionally dipping into its fissures in a manner most aptly illustrative of the fact that this tree really derives but little nutrition from the soil, the rocks upon which it grows, for the most part, serving to moor the giant in position that it may spread forth its leaves to feed upon the atmosphere? ”

“ The Mountain-Ash is almost always raised from seed, which may be sown any time from November to February. The tree grows rapidly for the first three or four years, attaining, in five years, the height of from eight to nine feet; after which it begins to form a head, and, in ten years, will attain the height of twenty feet. As it grows rapidly, even in the most exposed situations, it forms an admirable nurse-tree to the oak, and other slow-growing species ”

“ Already the ash trees, whose foliage has passed with much rapidity through olive-green and olive-yellow to tan-brown, which still holds a little of the olive tint, stand bare and gray against the sky, like the red maples, sure prophets of winter. The ash is never profuse of leaves. It drops them first of all in the autumn and{97} is among the latest to put them forth in the spring. Even in the height of summer you cannot say that its foliage is dense; and when the slender brown leaves lie upon the ground they do not make a thick carpet. They merely crisp under foot instead of rustling. ”

“ The Ash (Fraxinus excelsior and other varieties) is a particularly graceful and fine tree at its full growth. It is a native of Great Britain, and of many other parts of the world. It is long lived. The most profitable age for felling it as a forest-tree is from eighty to a hundred years. The flower comes out before the leaves, which are late, like those of the oak. The bunches of seed-vessels, or "ash-keys," as they are fancifully called, were pickled in salt and water and eaten in old times. ”

“ There are many old superstitions in connection with the ash, and there is a midland counties saying that if there are no keys on the ash, within a twelvemonth there will be no king.
There are several fine American varieties, and both in the States and in Canada the wood is used for purposes similar to ours.
The Alder (Alnus glutinosa, &c.) is never a very large tree. It is supposed to be in maturity when it is sixty years old. It will grow in wetter places than any other tree in Europe—even than the willow. Though the wood is soft, it is very durable in water. ”

“ The flowering of our forest trees is a phenomenon that does not as a rule attract attention, but their fruiting or seed-bearing becomes patent to all who visit the woods in autumn. A tree has lived many years before it is capable of producing seed. The seed-bearing age is different in each species; thus the Oak begins to bear when it is between sixty and seventy years old, the Ash between forty and fifty, the Birch and Sweet Chestnut at twenty-five years. ”

“ The sooner they are cut down and burnt the better.
There are between fifty and sixty exotic species of ash, but among them there is only one known to me as specially desirable for ornamental planting, namely, the Manna Ash (Fraxinus ornus) , producing a profusion of creamy-white plumes of blossom in June. This pretty tree is the source of the manna of commerce, a sweet and mildly laxative substance obtained by tapping the stem in late summer and allowing the sap which flows from the wound to coagulate. ”

“ There is no wood in the world from which such quantities of ashes can be secured; and that is the reason, I suppose, why the tree is called ash. Nor is there another tree whose ashes make so strong a lye. It was for this reason that we came here to make "salts."
We brought up on our raft twenty old flour-barrels, to be used as leach-tubs. These were set up in a semi-circle round our boiling-place, which was a long stone "arch." A pole and lumber-shed served us as a camp. ”

“ The first twig (Ash) had opposite leaves and is 3 years old (the end of each year's growth is marked by dotted lines on all the figures) ; the year before last it had 6 leaves on the middle portion; last year it had 8 leaves on the end portion and 12 on the side shoots of the middle portion. The buds near the [Pg 33] end of the annual growth are strongest and are most apt to grow. The specimen illustrated was probably taken from the end of a branch of a rather young and luxuriantly growing tree. Thus the Ash must have quite a regular growth and form a regularly outlined tree. ”

“ Common Ash. Leaves pinnate, with lanceolate, serrated leaflets: flowers destitute of calyx and corolla. In old trees, the lower branches, after bending downwards, curve upwards at their extremities. Flowers, in loose panicles: anthers large, purple: capsules with a flat leaf-like termination, generally of two cells, each containing a flat oblong seed. This beautiful tree assumes its foliage later than any of our trees, and loses it early. A variety occurs with simple leaves, and another with pendulous branches. Flowers in April and May; grows in natural woods in many parts of Scotland. ”