F. Oregona, Nutt.
The Oregon ash follows the coast south from Puget Sound to San Francisco Bay, and from the western foothills of the Sierra Nevada to those of the mountains of southern California. In southwestern Oregon the tree reaches the height of eighty feet, with a trunk three to four feet in diameter. The stout branches form a broad crown where there is room, and the luxuriant foliage is wonderfully light in color, pale green above, with silvery pubescent leaf-linings. Of the five to seven leaflets, all are sessile or short-stalked, except the terminal one, which has a stem an inch long. All are oval and abruptly pointed, thick and firm in texture, turning yellow or russet brown in autumn. The lumber is counted equal to white ash and is one of the most valuable of deciduous timber trees in the western coast states.
A number of little ash trees, distinct in species from those described already, are native to limited sections of the country. All have the family traits by which they are readily recognized, if seed form, leaf form, and leaf arrangement are kept in mind. In the corner where Colorado, Nevada, and Utah meet, is an ash with its leaf reduced to a single leaflet, but the seeds are profusely borne to declare the tree's name to any one who visits its restricted territory. In rich soil, three leaflets are occasionally developed.
The European Ash
F. Excelsior, Linn.
The European ash is the large timber ash from the Atlantic Coast of Europe to western Asia. The earliest writers have ranked its wood next to oak in usefulness. It was known as "the husbandman's tree." Its uses were listed at interminable length, for "ploughs, axle-trees, wheel-rings, harrows, balls … oars, blocks for pulleys, tenons and mortises, poles, spars, handles, and stocks for tools, spade trees, carts, ladders…. In short, so good and profitable is this tree that every prudent Lord of a Manor should employ one acre of ground with Ash to every twenty acres of other land, since in as many years it would be more worth than the land itself."
The saplings, cut when three to six years old, made excellent fork and spade handles on account of the toughness and pliability of their fibre. Crates for china were made of the branches. Steamed and bent, this wood lent itself to the making of hoops for barrels and kegs. The cutting off of the main trunk set the roots to sending up a forest of young shoots, ready for cutting again when they reached the size for walking-sticks and whip-stocks.
Quite independent of its lumber value, but possibly correlated with it, was the great reputation the ash tree achieved in the myths and superstitions of widely separated peoples. In south Europe, tradition declared that a race of brazen men sprung from the ash tree. In the North, the Norse mythology made Igdrasil, the ash, the "World tree," from whose roots the whole race of men sprung. The roots of this mythological tree penetrated the earth to its lowest depths and its giant top supported the heavens. Wisdom and knowledge gushed from its base as from a fountain, and underneath were the abodes of the gods, giants, and the Fates. Superstitions of all kinds have come down with the language of different peoples, making the history of the ash tree a most interesting study.
A Chinese ash yields a valuable white wax which exudes from the bark of the twigs. F. ornus, Linn., native to south Europe and Asia Minor, exudes a waxy secretion from bark and leaves. This is the manna of commerce. Last but not least of the products of the ash tree are the curious and beautiful contortions of the grain found in "burls" on the trunks of old trees of many species. These warty excrescences are eagerly bought by special agents for cabinet-makers. Woodwork from these abnormal growths shows exquisitely waved lines when polished, as delicate as those in a banded agate. Fancy boxes, bowls, and other articles brought fancy prices when made of "ram's horn" or "fiddleback" ash, which often went under the trade name of green ebony. The black ash in America is particularly subject to contortions of the grain.
THE ELMS