Fraxinus rotundifolia Mill.

In his Gardener’s Dictionary (ed. 1768), Philip Miller published the name F. rotundifolia for a plant with ovate-lanceolate serrate leaflets and coloured flowers, which ‘come out of the side of the branches … before the leaves come out. This tree is of humble growth, seldom rising more than fifteen or sixteen feet in England.’ He said the tree was a native of Calabria, which produced the manna, and identified it with the Fraxinus rotundiore folio of Bauhin. The ash so named had been described and figured by the pre-Linnean botanist Jean Bauhin in 1650, from a specimen brought by his brother Caspar from Italy as Ornus n. 3. Most probably this was the true manna ash F. ornus. On the other hand the cultivated tree described by Miller seems to have belonged to the section Fraxinaster, and could have been F. oxycarpa or some variant of F. excelsior. Unfortunately there is no specimen of Miller’s plant in the Herbarium of the British Museum (where many of his types are preserved), so it is impossible to be certain about the identity of the plant.

This problem is mentioned here because F. rotundifolia Mill, has been used in some works as the name for F. parvifolia or even for F. oxycarpa. It is better regarded as a name of uncertain application. See further below.