Specific characters of F. excelsior. Common Ash. Leaves pinnate, with lanceolate, serrated leaflets: flowers destitute of calyx and corolla. In old trees, the lower branches, after bending downwards, curve upwards at their extremities. Flowers, in loose panicles: anthers large, purple: capsules with a flat leaf-like termination, generally of two cells, each containing a flat oblong seed. This beautiful tree assumes its foliage later than any of our trees, and loses it early. A variety occurs with simple leaves, and another with pendulous branches. Flowers in April and May; grows in natural woods in many parts of Scotland.
Trees raised from the keys of the Ash are decidedly the best. The "keys," or tongues, should be gathered from a young thriving tree when they begin to fall (which is about the end of October), laid to dry, and then sown any time betwixt that and Christmas. They will remain a full year in the ground before they appear; it is therefore necessary to fence them in, and wait patiently. The Ash will grow exceedingly well upon almost any soil, and indeed is frequently met with in ruined walls and rocks, insinuating its roots into the crevices of decaying buildings, covering the surface with verdure, while it is instrumental in destroying that which yields it support. Its winged capsules are supposed to be deposited in those places by the wind.
The Ash asks not a depth of fruitful mould,
But, like frugality, on little means
It thrives, and high o'er creviced ruins spreads
Its ample shade, or in the naked rock,
That nods in air, with graceful limbs depends.
Bidlake.
Southey, in Don Roderick, speaks of the Ash:
—amid the brook,
Gray as the stone to which it clung, half root,
Half trunk, the young Ash rises from the rock,
And there its parent lifts its lofty head,
And spreads its graceful boughs; the passing wind
With twinkling motion lifts the silent leaves,
And shakes its rattling tufts.
The roots of the Ash are remarkably beautiful, and often finely veined, and will take a good polish. There are also certain knotty excrescences in the Ash, called the brusca, and mollusca, which, when cut and polished, are very beautiful. Dr. Plot, in his History of Oxfordshire mentions a dining-table made of them, which represented the exact figure of a fish.
With the exception of that of the oak, the timber of the Ash serves for the greatest variety of uses of any tree in the forest. It is excellent for ploughs.
Tough, bending Ash,
Gives to the humble swain his useful plough,
And for the peer his prouder chariot builds.
Dodsley.