Studies of trees in winter

by Annie Oakes Huntington

White or American Ash Fraxinus americana

A large tree with a straight trunk. Bark furrowed with irregular ridges, the hollows forming diamond shapes frequently. Buds smooth, thick and hard like leather, and a rusty brown color. Twigs smooth, without down. Leaf-scars opposite, and the stems are flattened at the nodes. Cross-shaped branching of the twigs against the sky.

AMERICAN ASH
Fraxinus americana

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The white ash is a tree which we find frequently along roadsides and in the woods everywhere in New England. The characteristics which distinguish it from other trees in winter are the close diamond-shaped fissures of the bark, the rusty brown buds, and often the old clusters of paddle-shaped fruit hanging on the tree. On some ash trees black, berry-like excrescences are found hanging in dry clusters on the ends of the branches. These are not clusters of fruit, as might at first be supposed, but the diseased and undeveloped remains of the panicles of staminate flowers which have been injured by mites,—curious freaks resembling oak-apples and the outgrowths of other insect poisoned plants. Occasionally these berry-like clusters have been gathered as seeds, by mistake, instead of the true fruit, a mistake which does not seem remarkable when the fruit-like appearance of the clusters is considered.

The wood of the white ash is heavy, tough, and strong, and is much used for agricultural implements, tool handles and oars, for the interior finish of houses and in the construction of carriages. Emerson tells of an ash which was felled in Granville many years ago, the wood of which furnished three thousand rake stalks. The tree from which I took the following photograph, stands on a farm in Sterling, Massachusetts, and measures over fourteen feet in circumference, five feet from the ground. This trunk illustrates the massive strength which gives the ash its one æsthetic quality.

Red or Downy Ash Fraxinus pennsylvanica

This tree resembles the white ash, but is distinguished from it by the down on the recent shoots. It is a smaller tree than the white ash, more spreading in shape. The twigs are less coarse and branch more frequently, with less space between the buds,—shorter internodes,—on shoots of the same age. Buds inconspicuous, smaller and blacker than those of the white ash. Bark closely furrowed, like that of the white ash. Leaf-scars opposite.

The red ash is much less coarsely moulded than the white ash, and in its leafless season, particularly, the contrast between its branches and those of the white ash is plainly seen. The fissures in the bark of the red ash seem a little finer and nearer together than those of the white ash bark on trees of the same age. The soft down on the recent shoots remains through the winter; and this, with the finer twigs, which branch more frequently, and the smaller, darker buds, makes the tree easily distinguished from the white ash in winter,—more easily even than in summer.