Leaves

Common Ash. pinnate, with lanceolate, serrated leaflets: flowers destitute of calyx and corolla. In old trees, the lower branches, after bending downwards, curve upwards at their extremities. Flowers, in loose panicles: anthers large, purple: capsules with a flat leaflike termination, generally of two cells, each containing a flat oblong seed. This beautiful tree assumes its foliage later than any of our trees, and loses it early. A variety occurs with simple leaves, and another with pendulous branches. Flowers in April and May; grows in natural woods in many parts of Scotland.

laid to dry, and then sown any time betwixt that and Christmas. They will remain a full year in the ground before they appear; it is therefore necessary to fence them in, and wait patiently. The Ash will grow exceedingly well upon almost any soil, and indeed is frequently met with in ruined walls and rocks, insinuating its roots into the crevices of decaying buildings, covering the surface with verdure, while it is instrumental in destroying that which yields it support. Its winged capsules are supposed to be deposited in those places by the wind.

The Ash asks not a depth of fruitful mould,
But, like frugality, on little means

It thrives, and high o'er creviced ruins spreads
Its ample shade, or in the naked rock,

That nods in air, with graceful limbs depends.

BIDLAKE.

Southey, in Don Roderick, speaks of the Ash:

— amid the brook,

Gray as the stone to which it clung, half root,
Half trunk, the young Ash rises from the rock,

And there its parent lifts its lofty head,

And spreads its graceful boughs; the passing wind
With twinkling motion lifts the silent leaves,
And shakes its rattling tufts.

The roots of the Ash are remarkably beautiful, and often finely veined, and will take a good polish. There are also certain knotty excrescences in the Ash, called the brusca, and mollusca, which, when cut and polished, are very beautiful. Dr. Plot, in his History of Oxfordshire mentions a dining-table

made of them, which represented the exact figure of a fish.

With the exception of that of the oak, the timber of the Ash serves for the greatest variety of uses of any tree in the forest. It is excellent for ploughs.

Tough, bending Ash,

Gives to the humble swain his useful plough,
And for the peer his prouder chariot builds.

DODSLEY.

It is also used for axle-trees, wheel-rings, harrows; and also makes good oars, blocks for pulleys, &c. It is of the utmost value to the husbandman for carts, ladders, &c., and the branches are very serviceable for fuel, either fresh or dry. The most profitable age for felling the Ash, appears to be from eighty to one hundred years. It will continue pushing from stools or from pollards, for above one hundred years.

Though a handsome tree, it ought by no means to be planted for ornament in places designed to be kept neat, because the leaves fall off, with their long stalks, very early in the autumn, and by their litter destroy the beauty of such places; yet, however unfit for planting near gravel-walks, or pleasure-grounds, it is very suitable for woods, to form clumps in large parks, or to be set out as standards. It should never be planted on tillage land, as the dripping of the leaves injures the corn, and the roots tend to draw away all nourishment from the ground. Neither should it be planted near pasture ground; for if the kine eat the leaves or shoots, the butter will become rank, and of little value.

There are many varieties of the common Ash, but that with pendulous branches is probably the best known it is called the Weeping Ash, and is of a heavy and somewhat unnatural appearance, yet it is very generally admired.

The foliage of the Ash-tree becomes of a brown colour in October.

Like leaves on trees the race of man is found

Now green in youth, now withering on the ground;
Another race the following spring supplies,

They fall successive, and successive rise :

So generations in their course decay,

So flourish these, when those are past away.

РОРЕ.

There are numerous species of the Ash, but these are so rarely to be met with in this country, that it is not necessary to particularize any of them.

*

[Fagus. Nat. Ord.-Amentiferæ ; Linn.- Monac. Poly.]

THE Common Beech (F. sylvatica), is supposed to be indigenous to England, but not to Scotland or Ireland. According to Evelyn, it is a beautiful as well as valuable tree, growing generally to a greater stature than the Ash: though Gilpin observes, that it does not deserve to be ranked

*Generic characters. Barren flowers in a roundish catkin. Perianth campanulate, divided into 5 or 6 segments. Stamens 8 to 15. Fertile flowers, 2 together, within a 4-lobed prickly involucre. Stigma 3. Ovaries 3-cornered and 3-celled.

by abortion 1 or 2-seeded. Named from pay, to eat.

Nut