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Fraxinus pennsylvanica Marsh.

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Credits

Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles

Recommended citation
'Fraxinus pennsylvanica' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/fraxinus/fraxinus-pennsylvanica/). Accessed 2024-04-15.

Common Names

  • Red Ash
  • Green Ash

Synonyms

  • Fraxinus pubescens Lam.
  • Fraxinus michauxii Britt.

Glossary

entire
With an unbroken margin.
glabrous
Lacking hairs smooth. glabrescent Becoming hairless.
lanceolate
Lance-shaped; broadest in middle tapering to point.
midrib
midveinCentral and principal vein in a leaf.
variety
(var.) Taxonomic rank (varietas) grouping variants of a species with relatively minor differentiation in a few characters but occurring as recognisable populations. Often loosely used for rare minor variants more usefully ranked as forms.

References

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Credits

Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles

Recommended citation
'Fraxinus pennsylvanica' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/fraxinus/fraxinus-pennsylvanica/). Accessed 2024-04-15.

Fraxinus pennsylvanica

Fraxinus pennsylvanica in late April 2009 (Lansdowne, Pennsylvania). Image John Grimshaw.

A tree 40 to 60 ft, sometimes more, high; bark as in the white ash, but less deeply furrowed; young shoots clothed more or less densely with a pale down. Leaves up to 1 ft long; leaflets seven or nine (occasionally five), oblong-lanceolate or narrowly oval, 3 to 6 in. long, 1 to 2 in. wide, broadly tapered at the base, long and slenderly pointed, rather obscurely toothed, or entire, especially at the lower half, dull green on both surfaces, and nearly or quite glabrous above, except along the sunken midrib which sometimes is downy, covered beneath with a pale down. The leaflets, especially the lower ones, are stalked, the stalks grooved and downy, as is also the common stalk. Male and female flowers occur on separate trees, and are produced on the old wood just below the new shoot. Fruits 1 to 2 in. long, rather variable in shape; wing extending half-way or more down the cylindrical body.

American foresters and many botanists no longer make a distinction between the red ash (i.e., typical F. pennsylvanica) and the following variety:

From the Supplement (Vol. V)

specimens: Kew, of several trees the largest is 92 × 71⁄2 ft (1979) and of var. subintegerrima, 68 × 61⁄2 ft (1980); Oxford Botanic Garden, 50 × 3 ft early this century, now 85 × 9 ft (1983).

Fraxinus pennsylvanica

Early autumn colour of Fraxinus pennsylvanica in Gunnersbury, west London; 15th September 2012. Image Owen Johnson.

Fraxinus pennsylvanica

Looking up into the canopy of the UK champion Fraxinus pennsylvanica in Forest Row, East Sussex, on 24th October 2013. Image Owen Johnson.

Fraxinus pennsylvanica

A shapely young Fraxinus pennsylvanica at the Batsford Arboretum, Gloucestershire, UK; 27th June 2014. Image Owen Johnson.

Fraxinus pennsylvanica

Timing of leaf fall in Fraxinus pennsylvanica varies considerably. This example of the Minnesota-provenance cultivar 'Summit' at the Lovell Quinta Arboretum, Cheshire, was in full green leaf while adjacent 'Patmore' was almost bare (20th September 2022). Image Julian Sutton.

Fraxinus pennsylvanica

Timing of leaf fall in Fraxinus pennsylvanica varies considerably. This example of the Alberta-provenance cultivar 'Patmore' at the Lovell Quinta Arboretum, Cheshire, had lost almost all its leaves while adjacent 'Summit' was in full leaf (20th September 2022). Image Julian Sutton.

Fraxinus pennsylvanica

The autumn colour of a remarkably vigorous and sturdy Fraxinus pennsylvanica planted in 2000 near the Azalea Garden at Kew; 22nd October 2022. Image Owen Johnson.

'Aucubifolia'

Leaflets mottled with yellow. This garden variety in some of its characters is intermediate between the typical state of F. pennsylvanica and the var. subintegerrima; the leaves are far from being as downy as in the former, but the shoots are quite downy. A handsome variegated tree.

Fraxinus pennsylvanica 'Aucubifolia'

Fraxinus pennsylvanica 'Variegata' (with a white marginal variegation) in Kensington Gardens, London; September 2010. Image Owen Johnson.

F berlandierana DC

This ash was described by De Candolle from specimens collected by Berlandier in Texas, and also occurs in Mexico. It is closely allied to F. pennsylvanica var. subintegerrima, differing in its smaller stature, thicker bark and smaller leaves with usually only five leaflets. As seen at Kew it was a pleasing small tree of free growth, with glossy, deep green leaflets, but is not now in the collection.

var. subintegerrima (Vahl) Fern.

Synonyms
F. lanceolata Borkh.
F. pennsylvanica var. lanceolata (Borkh.) Sarg

Branchlets glabrous; leaves glabrous except for some down on the veins beneath. According to Sargent this tree, as seen in the east, is distinct enough from typical F. pennsylvanica, ‘but trees occur over the area which it inhabits, but more often westward, with slightly pubescent leaves and branchlets which may be referred as well to one tree as to the other’. This glabrous extreme of F. pennsylvanica was once distinguished as the ‘green ash’, but this name is now used by American foresters for the species as a whole.F. pennsylvanica (including the above variety) has a wide range in N. America from the Atlantic to the Rockies and is usually found on wetter soils than the white ash (F. americana). As common in gardens as that species, it is not so effective and large a tree, although it grows quickly when young. A tree in the Oxford Botanic Garden, which was 50 × 3 ft when H. J. Elwes measured it early this century, is now 78 × 8 ft (1962). There is another at Hergest Croft, Heref., 65 × 5{1/2} (1961). At Kew the var. subintegerrima is represented by two trees, the larger, pl. 1897, 50 × 5{1/2} ft (1969).F. pennsylvanica in its typical state is easily enough distinguished from F. americana by its downy shoots, but the glabrous forms are easily confounded with that species. See further under F. americana.

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