Trees Planet: Fraxinus excelsior

General Information

Common Name	Ash, European Ash
Scientific Name	Fraxinus excelsior
Sun Tolerance	Full Sun
Height	20–35 m (66–115 ft)
Spread	6-10 m (20-33 ft)
Growth Rate	Fast
Bloom Time	Spring
Color	Green
Flower Color	Green, Dark Red
Type	Tree
Native	Europe, western Asia

Classification

Kingdom	Plantae – Plants
Subkingdom	Tracheobionta – Vascular plants
Superdivision	Spermatophyta – Seed plants
Division	Magnoliophyta – Flowering plants
Class	Magnoliopsida – Dicotyledons
Subclass	Asteridae
Order	Scrophulariales
Family	Oleaceae – Olive family
Genus	Fraxinus L. – ash
Species	F. excelsior

Ilex aquifolium - Holly

Fraxinus excelsior commonly known as Ash also called European Ash. It is among the most widely distributed of European Broad-leaved trees. It is the last native tree to come into leaf (mid-May) and the first to become bereft of foliage in autumn, though its fruits (‘bunches of keys’) often persist in large numbers throughout the winter.

The greenish-grey twigs are in pairs and are knobbly because of the swollen leaf-scars. The prominent large black winter buds are oppositely set. So, too, are its compound-pinnate leaves, 6-9 inches long, comprising 7-15 leaflets with serrated margins and channeled leaf-stalk.

The flowers, which appear well before the leaves, are purple, short-stalked and in dense, almost knobbly clusters, the precocious flowering giving a purplish tinge to the whole crown. Some trees are male and some female, some trees carry both sexes. The winged fruiting strap-shaped ‘keys’, likewise in clusters, each contain a seed at the base. When planted green they will germinate, but if allowed to become ripe and brown on the tree (usually by August they remain in clusters throughout the winter, appearing in silhouette as hanging bats or swarms of birds a waiting migration, until scattered by the March winds.

Ilex aquifolium - Holly

The grey-green bark is smooth and thin for some years, but eventually turns grey, roughens and fissures, diagonally or crisscrossed, into a regular pattern. The tree grows tall and slender, with an open rounded crown. It has a tendency to fork, generally due to frost, but occasionally to the Ash Bud moth, destroying the terminal bud.

Ash likes alkaline soils, where it regenerates freely form fallen seed. Silviculturists prefer to plant it on deep rich soils, away from frost pockets. Its wood, yellowish or greyish-white with sometimes a pale brow heartwood, is tough, elastic and cleaves easily. Among its important uses are sports goods (tennis-rackt frames, billiard cues and hockey sticks), oars, bar-hurdles, tent pegs, tool handles and furniture. It burns well – ‘ash wet or ash dry is fit for a Queen to warm her slippers by’. It is not a good hedgerow tree, being a ‘robber’ of adjacent soils on farmland.