see it clearly

Ash Trees

Called by Gilpin "the Venus of the woods," and said by Spenser to be "for nothing ill," the Ash is certainly one of the more important of our forest trees. It is truly native in Great Britain and throughout the greater part of Europe, whilst in North America it is represented by a closely allied species. Together with the Privets, Olives, Lilacs, and a few other genera, the Ashes form the small order Oleacea, a group of trees and shrubs with their leaves in opposite pairs, and with the parts of the flower in whorls of four or two, and generally united. The genus Fraxinus, to which the Ash belongs, consists of trees with deciduous foliage, with some at least of their flowers "imperfect," i.e., wanting either stamens or carpels, and with a winged fruit, or "samara." The etymology of the generic name is very uncertain.

One common species, Fraxinus excelsior, was no doubt so called by Linnaeus from its loftiness as compared with other members of the order. Its distinctive characters are the absence of both calyx and corolla, and the "oblonglanceolate" form and "serrate" margin of the leaflets, of which there are generally from nine to fifteen in each of the compound leaves.

There are frequent allusions to the Ash throughout European literature, since its tough saplings were naturally chosen by both Greeks and Romans for their spears, whilst the agricultural writers of the latter nation recommend its wood for agricultural implements, a use to which it is still largely applied. In Scandinavian mythology the Ash plays a prominent part:

"The primary characteristic of this old Northland mythology," says Carlyle, "I find to be impersonation of the visible workings of Nature. Earnest, simple recognition of the workings of Physical Nature, as a thing wholly miraculous, stupendous, and divine. What we now lecture of as Science, they wondered at, and fell down in awe before, as Religion. . . . All Life is figured by them as a tree. Igdrasil, the Ash-tree of existence, has its roots deep down in the kingdoms of Hela, or Death; its trunk reaches up heaven high, spreads its boughs over the whole universe: it is the Tree of Existence. At the foot of it, in the Death kingdom, sit three Nornas (Fates)--the Past, Present, Future--watering its roots from the Sacred Well. Its boughs, with their buddings and disleafings--events, things suffered, things done, catastrophes--stretch through all lands and times. Is not every leaf of it a biography--every fiber there an act or word?"

According to the Edda, an eagle rests on the summit of this mystic tree to observe all that passes in the world, whilst a squirrel constantly ascends and descends to report those things that the eagle may not have seen. Serpents twine round its trunk, and from its roots flow two limpid streams--that of the knowledge of things past and that of the knowledge of things to come. Man himself was formed from the wood of this sacred tree.

Of traditions and superstitious associations with the Ash there is apparently no end. Evelyn mentions the still lingering practice of passing sickly children through a split made in its stem, as a charm against various disorders; and another practice was to bury a shrew-mouse, which was supposed to bewitch cattle, in a hole in the stem, when a few strokes with a branch would cure the lameness or cramps which the mouse was believed to have caused. Many a rustic, probably, to this day believes that some dire calamity will befall the Crown or country in a year when there are no "locks and keys" on the Ash--a belief which may have only originated in the fact that probably in no year is the tree altogether without fruit, the fruit having for centuries been known in England as "keys" or "locks and keys." Popular weather-lore has various rhymes as to the probability of a wet or a dry season according as the Ash comes into leaf before or after the Oak; which, however, seem to be diametrically conflicting with one another in different counties.

It is no doubt from the green hoariness of its smooth bark that this beautiful tree derives its popular name in German and English, and few contrasts in tree coloration are more beautiful than its dead-black buds and delicately green young foliage against this ash-gray bark.

The Ash attains a height of from thirty to fifty, or even from seventy to ninety feet, with a girth commonly of five or six, but in exceptional instances of as much as twenty feet. As the old ballad says:

"The Oak, the Ash, and the Ivy tree--
Oh, they flourished best at hame, in the north countrie."

We see it at its best, growing in moist situations in a rich loam. If at all crowded it will form a trunk free from branches to a great height, but when standing alone it throws out large boughs, which divide into numerous branches so as to form a spreading head, whilst in old trees, especially when growing on rocky slopes, the branches acquire a downward sweep. Gilpin, in his "Forest Scenery," gives a characteristic description of the spray of the Ash:--

"As the boughs of the Ash are less complex than those of the Oak, so is its spray. Instead of the thick intermingled business which the spray of the Oak exhibits, that of the Ash is much more simple, running in a kind of irregular parallels. The main stem holds its course, forming at the same time a beautiful sweep; but the spray does not divide, like that of the Oak, from the extremity of the last year's shoot, but springs from the sides of it. Two shoots spring out opposite each other, and each pair in a contrary direction. Rarely, however, do both the shoots of either side come to maturity: one of them is commonly lost as the tree increases, or, at least, makes no appearance in comparison with the other, which takes the lead. So that, notwithstanding this natural regularity of growth (so injurious to the picturesque beauty of the Spruce Fir and some other trees), the Ash never contracts the least disgusting formality from it. It may even receive great picturesque beauty, for sometimes the whole branch is lost as far as one of the lateral shoots, and this occasions a kind of rectangular junction, which forms a beautiful contrast with the other spray, and displays an elegant mode of hanging to the branches of the tree. This points out another difference between the spray of the Oak and that of the Ash. The spray of the Oak seldom shoots from the under sides of the branches, and it is this chiefly which keeps the branches in a horizontal form. But the spray of the Ash, often breaking out on the under side of the branch, forms very elegant pendent boughs."

The short, oval, black buds which distinguish our Ash from its American congener, in which they are a greenish white, have attracted the attention of the Laureate, as, in "The Gardener's Daughter," he describes Juliet's hair as

"More black than Ash-buds in the front of March."

He also notes how

"The tender Ash delays
To clothe herself when all the woods are green."

Often, in fact, this species is not in full leaf until June, though in exceptional seasons, leaves may appear in the first week in May. Before the gracefully-cut foliage has, however, begun to burst from the black bud-scales, rich vinous clusters appear in the axils of the branches. These are the panicles of simple flowers, consisting mostly of purple-black anthers, but also bearing simple flask-shaped ovaries, surmounted by a two-forked stigma. The name "Flowering Ash," applied to the manna-yielding species of Southern Europe, is, of course, a misnomer, since the species has true flowers, though they be not the conspicuous objects popularly dignified by that title. Fraxinus ornus, the so-called "Flowering Ash," has a corolla of four white petals, differing from those of the allied genera, the Privets and the Lilacs, in being but very slightly united at the base. In this species also there is a small green calyx. Some Ash trees are exclusively male or exclusively female.

Like most of those trees which, from their flowering before the bursting of their leaf-buds, are termed "precocious," the Ash is probably often cross-fertilized by the wind. Its flowers appear in April and May. It is in June and July, however, that "the Venus of the woods" appears draped in her full beauty of gracefulness. Then the pinnate leaves, each consisting of from four to seven pairs of gracefully-tapered leaflets, arranged at some little distance apart along the mid-rib and at the end of a short leaf-stalk, give a light feathery grace to the whole tree. It may be merely rounded in outline or drawn up to some height, and the green of the foliage is somewhat dull and monotonous when viewed closely; but it is the transparency of the tree, and the play of light through its entire leafage, that give its chief charm to the Ash. Much of this airy lightness is lost in the weeping variety, as the foliage then hangs downwards like the dank green locks of some river naiad; but, like all pendulous trees, the form looks well by the water.

The leaves, with their lance-shaped outlines and toothed margins, are no less remarkable for their early fall in autumn than for their late arrival in spring. They often turn of a clear lemon-yellow before they fall, but as each leaf does so separately the tree is not among our more prominent autumn beauties.

The long and narrow strap-shaped fruits or "keys" hang in dense drooping clusters, which from a glossy sap-green become gradually streaked with a blackish hue, which then colors them entirely until they follow the falling leaves. Evelyn tells us that they were formerly picked when green and pickled with salt and vinegar "as a delicate salading." Their form no doubt assists in the dispersal of the seed away from the parent shade when the wind detaches it from the bare boughs, and it may also aid in burying it beneath the ground, as it certainly facilitates the introduction of Ash seeds into crevices in rocks, in ruined walls, or in clefts of other trees.

Few trees do more harm to vegetation beneath their shade than does the Ash, from its dense mass of roots sent out horizontally but a little beneath the surface. It is, therefore, most obnoxious to the farmer in the hedgerows of his arable land. It does not, however, absolutely kill grass growing beneath it, so might often be well planted as an ornamental tree on the lawn.

The wood of the Ash is a grayish-white throughout, the sap-wood being used along with the more central portions, an advantage peculiar to but few species. It is more flexible than that of any other European tree, and its value is increased by rapid growth. Few trees become useful so soon, it being fit for walking-sticks at four years' growth, for spade-handles at nine, and when three inches in diameter as valuable as the timber of the largest tree. In the Potteries it is largely used for crate-making, and in Kent for hop-poles. Both the spokes and the felloes of wheels are made from it, and from its flexibility it is in fact "the husbandman's tree" for every kind of agricultural implement. The tree lives to an age of several centuries, but can be most profitably felled at from eighty to a hundred years old. For smaller wood it is, of course, largely treated as coppice. The roots and knotty parts of the stem are valued by cabinet-makers, and were, according to Evelyn, known as "green ebony."

The timber, when beginning to decay, becomes stained of a blackish hue at the heart, and the young shoots, like those of the holly, are very liable to the malformation known as "fasciation"--"the wreathed fascia" of the older writers--in which several branches grow together in a flattened and often spirally twisted form.

Few trees are less particular as to soil than the Ash; but perhaps the sugar which in warmer latitudes exudes as "manna" from allied species produces in the North that greater luxuriance of growth which gives us the tree in its highest beauty.