Leaves 8′—12′ long, with a slender petiole glabrous, or puberulous toward the base, and 5—11 oblong-ovate to lanceolate long-pointed coarsely serrate leaflets unequally rounded or cuneate at base, and coated when they unfold on the lower surface with thick brown tomentum, and at maturity thick and firm, yellow-green and glabrous above, pale and glabrous or sometimes furnished with tufts of pale hairs along the base of the conspicuous midrib below, 3′—5′ long and 1′—2′ wide, with short stout petiolules and 8—12 pairs of veins arcuate near the margins; turning pale yellow in the autumn before falling. Flowers perfect, appearing as the terminal buds begin to expand, in loose-branched panicles from small obtuse buds with scales keeled on the back, apiculate at apex, and covered with thick brown tomentum; calyx reduced to an obscure ring; corolla 0; stamens 2, with nearly sessile broad connectives and dark purple oblong obtuse anther-cells; ovary oblong-ovoid, gradually narrowed into a short style divided at apex into 2 light purple stigmatic lobes generally maturing and withering before the anthers open. Fruit oblong to oblong-cuneate, 1′—2′ long and ⅓′—½′ wide, the wing rounded and often emarginate or acute at apex, surrounding the flat body faintly many-rayed on both surfaces.
A tree, usually 60°—70° or occasionally 120° high, with a trunk 2°—3° in diameter, small spreading branches forming a slender head, and stout 4-angled branchlets more or less 4-winged between the nodes, dark orange color and covered with short rufous pubescence when they first appear, becoming gray tinged with red in their second year and marked by scattered pale lenticels and by the large elevated obcordate leaf-scars displaying a lunate row of fibro-vascular bundle-scars, and in their third year light brown or ashy gray and then gradually becoming terete. Winter-buds: terminal about ¼′ long, with 3 pairs of scales, those of the outer row thick, rounded on the back, usually obscurely pinnate toward the apex, dark reddish brown, slightly puberulous or often hoary-tomentose, partly covering the bud, those of the inner rows strap-shaped, coated with light brown tomentum, often pinnate, becoming 1′—1½′ long. Bark of the trunk ½′—⅔′ thick, irregularly divided into large plate-like scales, the light gray surface slightly tinged with red separating into thin minute scales. Wood heavy, hard, close-grained, rather brittle, light yellow streaked with brown, with thick lighter colored sapwood of 80—90 layers of annual growth; largely used for flooring and in carriage-building, and not often distinguished commercially from that of other species of the northern and middle states. A blue dye is obtained by macerating the inner bark in water.
Distribution. Rich limestone hills, occasionally descending into the bottom-lands of fertile valleys; southwestern Ontario through southern Michigan to southwestern Iowa and southward through western Ohio and southeastern Indiana to eastern and central Kentucky (near Clarksville, Montgomery County), eastern Tennessee and northern Alabama (near Huntsville, Madison County), and through Missouri to southeastern Kansas, southwestern Arkansas and northeastern Oklahoma (near Pawhuska, Osage County); nowhere very abundant; of its largest size in the basin of the lower Wabash River, Illinois, and on the western slopes of the Big Smoky Mountains, Tennessee.
Occasionally cultivated as an ornament of parks and gardens in the eastern United States.
17. [Fraxinus nigra] Marsh. Black Ash. Brown Ash.
Leaves 12′—16′ long, with a stout pale petiole, and 7—11 oblong or oblong-lanceolate long-pointed leaflets, unequally cuneate or sometimes rounded at base, serrate with small incurved apiculate teeth, the lateral sessile, the terminal on a petiolule up to 1′ in length, covered especially below when they unfold with rufous hairs, and at maturity thin and firm, dark green above, paler below, glabrous with the exception of occasional tufts of rufous hairs along the under side of the broad pale midrib, 4′—5′ long and 1′—2′ wide, with many conspicuous primary veins arcuate near the margins and obscurely reticulate veinlets; turning rusty brown and falling early in the autumn. Flowers polygamous, without a perianth, appearing before the leaves in a compact or ultimately elongated panicle 4′—5′ long, and covered in the bud by broad-ovate dark brown or nearly black scales rounded at apex; staminate flowers on separate trees or mixed with perfect flowers, and consisting of 2 large deeply pitted oblong dark purple apiculate anthers attached on the back to short broad filaments; pistillate flower consisting of a long slender style deeply divided into 2 broad purple stigmas and often accompanied by 1 or 2 perfect or globose rudimentary pink anthers sessile or borne on long or short filaments. Fruit in open panicles 8′—10′ in length, oblong to slightly oblong-obovate, 1′—1½′ long and ⅓′ wide, with a thin wing, surrounding the short flat faintly nerved body, rounded and emarginate at apex and narrowed and rounded or cuneate at base.
A tree, occasionally 80°—90° high, with a tall trunk rarely exceeding 20′ in diameter, slender mostly upright branches forming a narrow head, and stout terete branchlets dark green and slightly puberulous when they first appear, soon becoming ashy gray or orange color and marked by large pale lenticels, growing darker during their first winter and then roughened by the large suborbicular leaf-scars displaying a semicircular row of conspicuous fibro-vascular bundle-scars; usually much smaller. Winter-buds: terminal broad-ovate, acute, rather less than ¼′ long, with 3 pairs of scales, those of the outer pair thick and rounded on the back at base, gradually narrowed and acute at apex, dark brown, slightly puberulous, falling as the bud begins to enlarge in the spring, and shorter than the scales of the inner rows coated on the outer surface with rufous pubescence, those of the second pair becoming strap-shaped, 1′ long, ⅓′ wide, and about half as long as the pinnate usually foliaceous inner scales. Bark of the trunk gray slightly tinged with red, ⅓′—½′ thick, and divided into large irregular plates separating into thin papery scales. Wood heavy, rather soft, not strong, tough, coarse-grained, durable, easily separable into thin layers, dark brown, with thin light brown often nearly white sapwood; largely used for the interior finish of houses and in cabinet-making, and for fences, barrel hoops, and in the manufacture of baskets.
Distribution. Deep cold swamps and the low banks of streams and lakes; southern Newfoundland and the northern shores of the Gulf of St. Lawrence to Lake Winnipeg, and southward to New Castle County, Delaware, the mountains of West Virginia, southwestern Indiana (Knox County; now probably exterminated by drainage), central Iowa, central Missouri, and northwestern Arkansas.