2. [Fraxinus Greggii] A. Gray.
Leaves 1½′—3′ long, with a winged petiole and rachis, and 3—7 narrow spatulate to oblong-obovate leaflets entire or crenately serrate above the middle with remote teeth, a slender midrib, and obscure reticulate veins, thick and coriaceous, dark green on the upper surface rather paler and covered with small black dots on the lower surface, ½′—¾′ long, ⅛′—¼′ wide, and nearly sessile. Flowers perfect or unisexual, on slender pedicels ⅛′—¼′ long, from the axils of ovate acuminate rusty-pubescent bracts, in pubescent panicles ½′—¾′ in length; calyx campanulate, scarious; stamens 1 or 2, filaments longer than the calyx, anthers declinate, nearly ⅛′ long; ovary broad-ovate, rounded at apex, longer than the calyx, the short style terminating in large reflexed stigmatic lobes. Fruit narrow-spathulate to oblong-obovate, ½′—⅔′ long and about ¼′ wide, the thin wing decurrent on the short terete body, rounded and emarginate at apex and tipped with the elongated persistent conspicuous style.
A tree, rarely 20°—25° high, with a trunk 8°—10° long and occasionally 8′ in diameter, and slender terete branchlets dark green and puberulous when they first appear, soon becoming ashy gray and roughened by numerous minute pale elevated lenticels, gradually turning dark gray, or brown in their second and third years; more often a shrub, with numerous slender erect stems 4°—12° tall. Winter-buds: terminal, about ⅛′ long, obtuse, with thick ovate light brown pubescent scales rounded on the back. Bark of the trunk thin, gray or light brown tinged with red, separating on the surface into large papery scales. Wood heavy, hard, close-grained, brown, with thick lighter-colored sapwood.
Distribution. Western Texas, along rocky beds of streams and deep ravines, Valverde County (near Devil’s River, Del Rio and Comstock); on the mountains of northeastern Mexico; apparently most common and of its largest size on the Sierra Nevada of Nuevo Leon.
3. [Fraxinus Lowellii] Sarg.
Leaves 3½′—6′ long, with a stout glabrous or slightly villose petiole, and 5 or rarely 3 ovate stalked leaflets, acuminate and long-pointed, acute or rarely rounded at apex, cuneate at base, serrate, often only above the middle, with small remote teeth, yellow-green, glabrous, or puberulous along the midrib above, glabrous or rarely sparingly villose near the base of the slender pale midrib below, 2¼′—3′ long and 1′—1½′ wide, with thin primary veins arching and united near the slightly thickened and revolute margins; on vigorous shoots occasionally 1-foliolate with a broad-ovate or semiorbicular leaflet. Flowers unknown. Fruit ripening in July, in long glabrous panicles, oblong-obovate to oblong-elliptic, surrounded at base by the minute slightly dentate calyx, 1′—1½′ long, ¼′—⅓′ wide, the wing broad or gradually narrowed and rounded, and often emarginate at apex and extending to the base of the thin compressed many-rayed body about three-quarters the length of the fruit.
A tree, 20°—25° high, with dark deeply furrowed bark, stout quadrangular often winged branchlets orange-brown in their first season and dark gray-brown the following year.
Distribution. Arizona, rocky slopes of Oak Creek Cañon about twenty miles south of Flagstaff, Coconino County, and in Copper Cañon, west of Camp Verde, Yavapai County.