Red ash seeds are extremely long and slender, and have the most graceful outlines of all the darts that various ash trees bear. The heavy, round body has a wing twice its length by which the wind carries the seeds far away. Very gradually an ash tree launches its seeds. It is easy to understand why the family is so scattered through any woods, for the wind is the sower. The reddish bark of the twigs and trunk of this tree seems to be the justification for its name. Its brown wood is inferior to white ash.
The Green Ash
F. Pennsylvanica, Variety lanceolata, Sarg.
The green ash has narrower, shorter leaves than the parent species and usually more sharply saw-toothed margins. Instead of having pale linings, the leaflets are bright green on both surfaces. This is the ash tree of the almost treeless prairies from Dakota southward, where it not only lives, but flourishes as well as in its native habitat, the rich soil of stream banks farther east. Its range crosses the Rocky Mountains and reaches the slopes of the Wasatch Mountains in Utah. East of the Alleghanies the tree is little known. It is in the West that it is the dominant ash. It is one of the few important agencies which have turned the "Great American Desert" into a land of shady roads and comfortable, protected homesteads.
The Blue Ash
F. quadrangulata, Michx.
The blue ash has four-angled twigs, often winged at the corners with a thin plate of bark. The sap contains a substance that gives a blue dye when the inner bark is macerated in water. The tree reaches one hundred and twenty feet in height, above a slender trunk, and has small spreading branches that terminate in stout twigs, characteristically angled.
The tree is occasionally cultivated in parks and gardens in the Eastern states where it is a distinct addition to the list of handsome shade trees. It is hardy, quick of growth, and unusually free from the ills that beset trees. In the forests it reaches its best estate on the limestone hills of the Big Smoky Mountains. Its wood ranks with the best white ash and exceeds it in one particular; it is the most durable ash wood when exposed alternately to wet and dry conditions. It is used for vehicles, for flooring and for handles of tools especially pitchforks.
The Oregon Ash