Like all our indigenous trees, the ash has impressed itself upon our place-names. Ashby, Ashton, Ashridge, Ascot—the map of England is peppered freely with such names; that of Scotland more sparsely, owing to the preponderance of Gaelic in the topography. The Gael employed several forms of his name for the ash, namely, fuinnse, fuinnsean, and fuinnseog (pronounced funsha, funshan, and funshog), whence many names in southern and western Ireland such as Funcheon, a river in Cork, Funshin, and Funshinagh several times in Connaught. But the initial consonant soon dropped off, and in northern Ireland and among the Scottish Gaels the word became uinnse (inshy) preserved in the name Inshaw Hill (Wigtownshire), Killyminshaw (Dumfriesshire), etc.; or uinnseog (inshog), recognisable in Inshock (Forfar), Inshaig (Argyll), Inshog (Nairn), Drumnaminshoch and Knockninshock (Kirkcudbright). The plural uinnsean (inshan) has assumed a very grotesque form in Wigtownshire, where there are two farms twenty miles apart named Inshanks.
Liability to disease is an important consideration in regard to forest trees, and the ash has the merit of being remarkably free from ailments. The worst malady from which it is liable to suffer seriously is known as ash canker, whereby the timber is rendered worthless except for firing. Happily it does not seem very contagious; for I have known badly cankered trees standing for twenty years and more without imparting the disease to their healthy neighbours. The late Dr. Masters attributed the mischief to the work of the larva of a small moth (Tinea curtisella). That creature may start the injury, but it is certainly taken up and aggravated by the fungoid organism Nectria ditissima. Although, as aforesaid, the disease does not appear to be readily communicable to healthy trees, it is not advisable to leave the unsightly invalids standing. The sooner they are cut down and burnt the better.
There are between fifty and sixty exotic species of ash, but among them there is only one known to me as specially desirable for ornamental planting, namely, the Manna Ash (Fraxinus ornus), producing a profusion of creamy-white plumes of blossom in June. This pretty tree is the source of the manna of commerce, a sweet and mildly laxative substance obtained by tapping the stem in late summer and allowing the sap which flows from the wound to coagulate.
Manna of various sorts is collected from many different kinds of plant; that which supported the Israelites in the desert is supposed to have been an exudation from the tamarisk; but Sicilian manna is the only kind that is recognised as an article of European trade. In Sicily the manna ash is planted in frassinetti or ash-yards, grown for eight years and regularly tapped, till the main stem is exhausted, when it is cut down, and a fresh growth is allowed to spring from the root. The active principle in manna is mannite, a hexatomic alcohol, chemically expressed as C6H8(OH)6. The manna ash is not often seen in this country; those specimens which are of any size are invariably grafted plants; but a stock is easily raised from seed, which Continental nurserymen readily supply. In Dalmatia and Montenegro, where this tree abounds, drivers stick the flowers thereof in the harness of their horses to keep off flies, which dislike the peculiar odour. A Chinese species (F. mariesii) is near of kin to F. ornus, and is said to bear flowers of superior beauty to that tree; but of this I can only write from hearsay.
The Linden Tree or Lime
When we speak of a lime tree we conform to a corrupt usage, for the right English name is "line" or "linden tree," linden being the adjectival form of the Anglo-Saxon "lind," just as "asp" and "oak" give the adjectives "aspen" and "oaken." The late Professor Skeat, foremost authority in English etymology, observed that "the change from 'line' to 'lime' does not seem to be older than about A.D. 1700"; but he overlooked the use of the modern form by John Evelyn, who, in his Sylva (1664), writes always of "the lime tree or linden," showing that the change had taken place between his day and Shakespeare's.
Prospero. ... Say, my spirit,
How fares the King and his?
Ariel. Confin'd together
In the same fashion as you gave in charge;
Just as you left them, sir; all prisoners
In the line grove which weather-fends your cell.
(Tempest, Act v. sc. 1.)
The root meaning of the word is "smooth," referring to the texture of the timber, which caused it of old to be in great request for making shields, so that in Anglo-Saxon lind meant a shield, as well as being the name of the tree.