ON THE ASH, BEECH, AND OTHER WHITE-WOODED TREES.
The Ash (Fraxinus excelsior), when well-grown and in good foliage, is one of our most charming trees; its light, graceful, and agreeably-coloured leaves, united with a graceful disposition of lithe, smoothly-formed limbs, altogether fully entitle it to be considered as the “Venus of the Forest.”
The leaves of the common ash are pinnate, with from three to four pairs of leaflets and one terminal leaflet. This latter is sometimes absent when the apex is bifoliate, and a form called the double-leaf is produced, which even at this day is reputed by the rustics to be capable of working various charms.
It is this pinnate pendent leaf which, loosely hanging on the flexile, more or less pendent branches, gives so much grace to the tree.
We have been much pleased with some groups of ash trees in Earl Bathurst’s park (Oakley Park) at Cirencester; but, as Strutt well observes,—
It is in mountain scenery that the ash appears to peculiar advantage; waving its slender branches over some precipice which just affords it soil sufficient for its footing, or springing between crevices of rock, a happy emblem of the hardy spirit which will not be subdued by fortune’s scantiness. It is likewise a lovely object by the side of some crystal stream, in which it views its elegant pendent foliage, bending, Narcissus-like, over its own charms.
But charming as is the ash when in its most perfect foliage, yet as its æstivation is usually so late, and the fall of its leaves so early and rapid, it often displays all but naked limbs, even amidst the freshness of spring, as well as during the autumnal tinting of almost all other trees. It would seem that its buds cannot expand in spring frosts, whilst the first frost of autumn will frequently make the whole foliage drop in one mass beneath the influence of the succeeding sunshine. This susceptibility to spring cold is doubtless at the base of the country weather predictions which are made to depend upon the behaviour of the ash in respect to its time of displaying its leaves:—
When the oak’s before the ash,
You may then expect a dash.
Generally held to mean, that if the leaves of the oak are seen before those of the ash, a fine dry summer may be expected; but, on the contrary,—
With the ash before the oak,
You may then expect a soak.