OREGON ASH
(Fraxinus Oregona)
This tree is unusual in that it has only one common name, and that is a translation of its botanical name which was given it by Nuttall who visited the Pacific coast several years before the discovery of gold.
The moist bottom lands of southwestern Oregon are best suited to its growth, and here the best individuals and most abundant stands are found. Moist soil and climate are essential to proper development of this tree, and in such environment it is found from Puget Sound southward along the coast to San Francisco. A little further from the coast it grows along the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains, to the low mountains in San Diego and San Bernardino counties, California, in the southern extension of its range occupying a rather dry region.
The trunk grows to a height of eighty or 100 feet, and is often three feet in diameter. It is covered with a gray-brown bark, exfoliating in flaky scales. The leaves are from five to fourteen inches long, and have five or seven firm, light-green leaflets, finely toothed and bluntly pointed. The flowers appear in April and May and are in compact panicles; the fruit in clusters, broadly winged and round pointed, and from one to two inches long.
The scarcity of good hardwoods on the Pacific coast gives this ash more importance than it otherwise would have, and the importance which it possesses has been frequently overstated. It is not abundant of form and size fitting it for lumber. It has long been cut in small quantities, but never in large. The census returns for 1910 show that less than 400,000 feet per year are reported in its entire range. Three-fourths of this is sawed in Oregon, the remainder in Washington. Though the species has a range of 800 miles north and south through California, no sawmill reported a foot of it. However, it is probable that census returns fail to do this wood full justice; for it is well known that considerable quantities are manufactured into articles without passing through sawmills. Chief among such commodities is slack cooperage. Butter tubs of Oregon ash are common. Much goes to wagon shops, and some of it without aid of sawmills.
Little or none of this wood is shipped outside its range, and its use is local. Boat builders work it into finish for cabins and upper parts, and some serves as ribs. It is often seen as handles for picks, shovels, spades, pitchforks, and rakes. A little finds place, combined with other woods, in office and store fixtures. Its grain resembles that of white ash. It is not as heavy, and it is not believed to be as strong. It is hard, brittle, brown in color, with thick, lighter-colored sapwood. Furniture makers list it as shop material, and such is its largest reported use in Washington. A moderate amount is made into saddletrees and stirrups, and much is used as fuel.
Oregon ash has been planted for shade and ornament in both this country and Europe. It grows rapidly and develops a symmetrical crown. The habit it has of coming into leaf late in the spring and throwing its foliage down early in autumn is held by some as a serious objection to it as an ornamental tree; but it has compensating habits. It is remarkably free from disease, and, though leaves come late and go early, while its foliage is on, it is healthy and vigorous. Reproduction is satisfactory in the tree’s wild state, and there is no danger that the species will disappear. No movement has yet been made to plant this ash for commercial timber growing.
Green Ash (Fraxinus lanceolata) has been given that name on account of the bright color of its foliage. It has other names, however, which indicate that its greenness is not always preËminently prominent. In Iowa and Arkansas they call it blue ash; in Kansas and Nebraska white ash; in some regions it is known as water ash, and elsewhere swamp ash. Some botanists do not regard it as a separate species but call it a variety of red ash, but the consensus of opinion is that it is a distinct species, though there appear to be connecting forms grading from red ash into green ash. Certain it is that the two are distinct enough in certain parts of the country. The range of green ash is more extensive than that of any other ash in this country. Beginning in Vermont it passes southward to Florida; northwestward to the Saskatchewan river several hundred miles north of the international boundary line; along the base of the Rocky Mountains and over the ranges to Arizona, and through Texas. This includes more than half of the area of the United States. Notwithstanding a range so extensive, the total quantity of green ash timber in the country is not large. No pure forests or extensive stands exist. Trees are widely dispersed, and when lumbermen cut them, the wood is sold as some other, usually as white ash. The wood has the general characters of red ash. It weighs about forty-four pounds per cubic foot of dry wood; is moderately strong, fairly stiff and elastic, and, like other species of ash, it is not durable in contact with the soil.
Green ash is more planted than any other in the cold and dry regions of the West and Northwest. It is a prairie tree and is found along highways and in door yards from Kansas northward into British America. It stands drought better than any other ash, and resists cold fully as well, and yet it endures the warm weather and the rains of the South and flourishes there. It is not a large tree, but of sufficient size for use as furniture, finish, and vehicle making. It is seldom listed in statistics of woods which go to sawmills, yet it is known that a good many logs find their way to mills, while wagon makers and slack coopers employ it in producing their commodities. The tree is an abundant seeder, and the seeds continue to fall during most of the winter.
Red Ash (Fraxinus pennsylvanica) is neither a large tree nor very abundant, yet it has a wide range and is put to use wherever lumbermen find it convenient. The lumber generally passes in the market as white ash, and for most purposes it is as good, but is rated lower than that wood in elasticity. It is called brown ash in Maine, black ash in New Jersey, river ash in Rhode Island. The last name is bestowed because the tree prefers moist land near rivers and ponds, and largest specimens are found in such situations, where it is often an associate of black ash and is frequently mistaken for it, though it should not be difficult to tell the species apart. A slight reddish tinge sometimes shows on the outer bark; the inner layer of bark is reddish; the small twigs and the under sides of leaves are clothed with hairs which sometimes suggest redness; and the heartwood is reddish-brown. Persons who speak of the tree as red ash probably have one or more of those characteristics in mind. As a tree it has no striking peculiarities. Its usual height is forty or sixty feet; its diameter from fifteen to twenty inches; its compound leaves ten or twelve inches long, with seven or nine leaflets; its seeds one or two inches in length, narrow, and sharply pointed, with slender, graceful wing.
The range of red ash is from New Brunswick to Dakota, and from Florida to Alabama, with all of the included region of a million square miles. It attains its best development in the north Atlantic states, while it is usually inferior west of the Alleghany mountains. It develops a broad crown in open ground, but even there its lower limbs die and drop, while in forests the trunk grows tall and the crown is reduced. It is planted for shade and ornament, but it seems to have no superiority over white ash for that purpose. Some of the Michigan manufacturers list red ash separately in their factories, and apparently this is not done elsewhere in the country. About three-quarters of a million feet a year are used in that state, and since uses there are doubtless typical of uses in the country generally, the list possesses importance: Automobile frames, boxes, butter tubs, crates, eveners, flooring, furniture, interior finish, neck yokes, singletrees, wagon poles. Farther east in early times red ash was occasionally split for fence rails, but that use is important now only as history.
Pumpkin Ash (Fraxinus profunda) is a tree of peculiar interest. It was unknown before 1893, though the region had been settled over a hundred years. It has the largest leaves, largest fruit, and largest swelled base of all American ashes. Notwithstanding that, it remained so deeply hidden in swamps that it escaped discovery. The botanical name refers to the deep swamps in which the tree chooses its habitation. Its great, swelled base enables it to stand on the soft mud of lagoon bottoms, and the abnormal swelling is ribbed like a pumpkin, hence the only English name the tree has ever had. These are not the only remarkable things connected with this ash. Its range includes three or four deep swamps, far apart. One is in southern Missouri, New Madrid country, another near Varney, Arkansas, and a third, in a vast morass on the Apalachicola river, Florida. It is believed to have been originally a Florida species, and by some freak of nature it reached the Missouri and Arkansas swamps. Certain other Florida plants accompanied it, one of which was corkwood (Leitneria floridana). It is expected that pumpkin ash will be found elsewhere in deep swamps intermediate between the extremes of its range. The uses of this wood are few, because it is scarce, and the trees are difficult of access on account of being nearly always surrounded by water. Lumbermen who operate in swamps occasionally bring out a few ash logs with cypress and tupelo. No tests seem to have been made of the wood. Trees are sometimes 120 feet high and three in diameter above the swelled bases.
Water Ash (Fraxinus caroliniana) is much lighter in weight than any other American ash, and the wood is also lighter in color. It is weaker and less elastic than any other, and is lower in fuel value. It weighs less than white pine. It grows in deep swamps from southern Virginia to Florida and westward in swamps to Texas. Some have confused it with pumpkin ash, but the two are quite distinct. This tree is also called poppy ash. The leaves are from seven to twelve inches long, with five or seven leaflets which are much blunter than most other ash leaves. The seeds are nearly in the center of the broad, long wing, and are better flyers than most ash seeds. The tree seldom exceeds forty feet in height, or twelve inches in diameter. It is not known that the wood is ever used. Its scarcity will keep it from becoming important, though its uncommon lightness may lead to its employment for certain purposes.
Biltmore Ash (Fraxinus biltmoreana) is named from Biltmore, N. C., where the tree attains its best development, a height of forty or fifty feet and a foot or less in diameter. Its range extends from northern West Virginia southward along the foothills of the Appalachian mountains to Georgia, Alabama, and middle Tennessee. The seed wings are slender, and only slightly narrowed at the end. The leaf is ten or twelve inches long, with seven or nine leaflets. The twigs of young trees are hairy. An occasional log doubtless goes to sawmills, but no report has been made of uses of the wood.
Florida Ash (Fraxinus floridana) is a deep swamp tree, thirty or forty feet high, and a few inches in diameter. It is found in the valley of St. Mary’s river, southern Georgia, and along the lower Apalachicola river, Florida. The compound leaves are five or more inches long with three or five leaflets. The seeds are small but their wings are wide and long. No report has been made concerning the quality of the wood, nor has it been used, as far as known. The supply is very small.
Oregon ash branch
