4. [Fraxinus anomala] S. Wats.
Leaves mostly reduced to a single leaflet but occasionally 2 or 3-foliolate, the leaflets broad-ovate or orbicular, rounded or acute or rarely obcordate at apex, cuneate or cordate at base, and entire, or sparingly crenately serrate above the middle, covered above when they unfold with short pale hairs and pubescent beneath, and at maturity thin but rather coriaceous, dark green above, paler below, 1½′—2′ long and 1′—2′ wide, or when more than one much smaller, with a broad rather conspicuous midrib and obscure veins, and when solitary raised on a stout grooved petiole rusty-pubescent early in the season, becoming glabrous, and often 1½′ long, or short-petiolulate in the compound leaves. Flowers appearing when the leaves are about two thirds grown, in short compact pubescent panicles, with strap-shaped or lanceolate acute bracts ½′ long and covered with thick brown villose tomentum, perfect or unisexual by the abortion of the stamens, the 2 forms occurring in the same panicle; calyx cup-shaped, minutely 4-toothed; anthers linear-oblong, orange colored, raised on slender filaments nearly as long as the stout columnar style. Fruit obovate, ½′ long, the wing rounded and often deeply emarginate at apex, surrounding the short flattened striately nerved body, and ⅓′ wide.
A tree, 18°—20° high, with a short trunk 6′—7′ in diameter, stout contorted branches forming a round-topped head, and branchlets at first quadrangular, dark green tinged with red and covered with pale pubescence, orange colored and puberulous in their first winter and marked by elevated pale lenticels and narrow lunate leaf-scars, and in their second or third year terete and ashy gray; often a low shrub, with numerous spreading stems. Winter-buds: terminal broad-ovoid, acuminate or obtuse, covered with thick orange-colored tomentum, and ⅛′—¼′ long. Bark of the trunk dark brown slightly tinged with red, ¼′ thick and divided by shallow fissures into narrow ridges separating into small thin appressed scales. Wood heavy, hard, close-grained, light brown, with thick lighter colored sapwood of 30—50 layers of annual growth.
Distribution. In the neighborhood of streams; valley of the McElmo River, southwestern Colorado; Carriso Mountains, San Juan County, northwestern New Mexico; northeastern (Apache County), and the Grand Cañon of the Colorado River, Coconino County, Arizona; southern Utah to the Charleston Mountains, southwestern Nevada and adjacent California (Inyo County).
5. [Fraxinus caroliniana] Mill. Water Ash. Swamp Ash.
Leaves 7′—12′ long, with an elongated stout terete pale petiole, and 5—7 long-stalked ovate to oblong acute or acuminate leaflets rarely rounded at apex, cuneate or sometimes rounded or subcordate at base, and coarsely serrate with acute incurved teeth, or entire, pilose above and more or less hoary-tomentose below when they unfold, and at maturity thick and firm, 3′—6′ long and 2′—3′ wide, dark green above, paler or sometimes yellow-green and glabrous or pubescent (var. Rehderiana Sarg.) beneath, particularly along the conspicuous midrib and the numerous arcuate veins connected by obscure reticulate veinlets. Flowers diœcious, appearing in February and March in short or ultimately elongated panicles inclosed in the bud by chestnut-brown pubescent scales; staminate flower with a minute or nearly obsolete calyx, and 2 or sometimes 4 stamens, with slender filaments and linear apiculate anthers; calyx of the pistillate flower cup-shaped, deeply divided and laciniate, as long as the ovary gradually narrowed into an elongated slender style. Fruit elliptic to oblong-obovate, frequently 3-winged, surrounded at base by the persistent calyx, 2′ long, ⅓′—¾′ wide, often marked on the 2 faces by a conspicuous impressed midvein, the body short, compressed, and surrounded by the broad thin many-nerved sometimes bright violet-colored wing, acute or acuminate, or rounded and emarginate at apex and usually narrowed below into a stalk-like base.
A tree, rarely more than 40° high, with a trunk sometimes 12′ in diameter, small branches forming a narrow often round-topped head, and slender terete branchlets light green and glabrous or tomentose when they first appear, light brown tinged with red and sometimes covered with a glaucous bloom or rarely pubescent or tomentose (var. Rehderiana Sarg.) in their first winter, becoming in their second year light gray or yellow, occasionally marked by large pale lenticels, and by the elevated semiorbicular leaf-scars displaying a short row of conspicuous fibro-vascular bundle-scars. Winter-buds: terminal, ⅛′ long, with 3 pairs of ovate acute chestnut-brown puberulous scales, those of the outer rank thickened at base, rounded on the back, and shorter than the others. Bark of the trunk 1/16′—⅛′ thick, light gray, more or less marked by large irregularly shaped round patches, and separating on the surface into small thin closely appressed scales. Wood light, soft, weak, close-grained, nearly white sometimes tinged with yellow, with thick lighter colored sapwood.
Distribution. Deep river swamps inundated during several months of the year, usually under the shade of larger trees, or rarely in drier ground; coast region of the Atlantic and Gulf states, valley of the Potomac River, Virginia, near Washington, D.C., to Florida southward to Lake County and on the west coast to the valley of the lower Apalachicola River, and to the valley of the Neches River (Beaumont, Jefferson County), Texas, and northward through western Louisiana to southwestern (Malvern, Hot Springs County) Arkansas; east of the Mississippi River occasionally appearing in isolated stations remote from the coast (Anson County, North Carolina, C. L. Boynton, Pike County, Georgia, R. H. Harper, Forest County, Mississippi, T. G. Harbison); in Cuba.