A modern reference to temperate woody plants, including updated content from this site and much new material, can be found at Trees and Shrubs Online.

Fraxinus nigra Marsh.

Black Ash

Modern name

Fraxinus nigra Marshall

Synonyms

F. sambucifolia Lam.

A native of eastern N. America, whence it was introduced to England in 1800, this ash has never been a success, and appears to be unworthy of cultivation. It is a tree 80 to 90 ft high in the wild, and grows in damp situations; young shoots glabrous. Leaflets seven to eleven, oblong or oblong lance-shaped, slender-pointed, 3 to 5 in. long, 1 to 2 in. wide, glabrous on both surfaces except for reddish down along the side of the midrib and veins, beneath which it is densest towards the base, and extends round the main-stalk. All the leaflets except the terminal ones are stalkless – even more distinctly so than in F. mandshurica. In many of its characters the black ash is similar to F. mandshurica; the leaflets, however, are much less tapered at the base or may even be rounded, and the marginal teeth are shallow and quite inconspicuous. It has little interest or value in gardens.


Genus

Fraxinus

Other species in the genus