Ash trees are late in coming into leaf. When all the forest is green and full of blossoms, the ash trees are still naked. Not until May do the rusty yellow winter buds of the white ash swell and throw out on separate trees their staminate and pistillate flower clusters from the axils of last year's foliage. (See illustration, [page 214].) Then the leaves unfold; downy at first, becoming bright and shiny above, but always with pale linings. On fertile trees the inconspicuous flowers mature into pointed fruits, one to two inches long. The wing is twice the length of the seed and is rounded to a blunt point. The seed itself is round and pointed, on branching stalks that form clusters from six to eight inches long.
As a street tree the white ash deserves much more general favor in cities than it has yet achieved, for it is straight and symmetrical, and its light foliage grows in irregular, wavy masses, through which some sunlight can always sift and let grass grow under the tree. This tree is a rapid grower, perfectly hardy in most sections of the country, and has no serious insect enemies. The foliage turns to brownish purple and yellow in the autumn.
The Black Ash
F. nigra, Marsh.
The black ash is a lover of marshes, found from Newfoundland to Manitoba, and from Virginia to Arkansas. Its blue-black winter buds, the sombre green of its foliage, and the dark hues of its bark and wood have justified the popular name of this handsome, slender tree. The leaflets, oval and long-pointed, are sessile on the hairy leaf stalk, except the terminal one. At maturity the leaves are a foot or more in length, of seven to eleven leaflets, that turn brown and fall early in autumn. The keys of the black ash are borne in open panicles, eight to ten inches long; each has a short, flat seed, with a broad blade, thin, rounded, and notched instead of pointed, at the extremity.
The wood of black ash has the tough, heavy coarse-grained qualities of the white ash, but differs in being very durable and in being easily split into thin layers—each a year's growth. The Indians taught the early settlers to weave baskets out of black ash splints. These splints are easily separated by bending the split wood over a block. The strain breaks loose the tissue that forms the spring wood, and separates the bands of tough, dense summer wood into strips suitable for basket weaving. Black ash is used for chair seats, barrel hoops, furniture, and cabinet-work. The saplings are oftenest chosen for hop and bean poles.
As a lawn tree, the black ash has little to recommend it for it often dies of thirst in the loam of a garden. At best it is short-lived. Planted in swampy ground, the tree spreads by seeds, and suckers from the roots, soon forming extensive thickets, and drinking up the moisture at a marvelous rate.
The Red Ash
F. Pennsylvanica, Marsh.
The red ash follows the courses of streams and lake margins from New Brunswick to the Black Hills and south into Florida, Alabama, and Nebraska. This tree is much planted for shade and ornament in New England, and in other Eastern sections. The tree is small, spreading into a compact though irregular head of twiggy, slender branches. The yellow-green foliage, a foot long, of seven to nine short, stalked, lustrous leaflets, is lightened by a pale pubescence on petioles and leaf-linings. The same velvety down covers the new shoots. Summer and winter this sign never fails.