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 velutina Torr.

Arizona Ash

Modern name

Fraxinus velutina Torr.

Synonyms

F. pennsylvanica subsp. velutina (Torr.) G. N. Miller; F. coriacea S. Wats.; F. velutina var. coriacea (S. Wats.) Rehd.; F. velutina var. glabra Rehd.; F. velutina var. toumeyi Rehd.

A tree 25 to 40 ft (rarely 50 ft) high, with a slender trunk; bark with broad, scaly ridges; young stems covered in their first season with a more or less dense covering of fine woolly hairs. Leaves rather thick, 4 to 6 in. long; leaflets three or five (occasionally seven), lanceolate, ovate, elliptic or rhombic-elliptic, acute or acuminate at the apex, 34 to 3 in. long, the upper part edged with small blunt teeth, upper surface pale green, velvety to glabrous, undersides conspicuously net-veined, usually permanently downy but sometimes becoming almost glabrous, lateral leaflets distinctly stalked to almost sessile, stalk of the terminal one about 12 in. long. Flower panicles downy. Fruits 12 to 34 in. long with an oblong-obovate to elliptic wing which is shorter than the cylindrical body.

Native of the S.W. United States and Mexico, described from Nevada; introduced to Kew in 1901. It is a variable species, allied to F. pennsylvanica, but is a smaller tree with usually thicker leaflets five more rarely seven in number and with the wings of the fruits shorter in relation to the body. No varieties are recognised by Miss Miller, but she notes that the narrow-lanceolate type of leaflet is usually longer-stalked than the ovate or elliptic type. Trees with the former type of leaflet have been distinguished as var. toumeyi (Britt.) Rehd., and judging from the examples at Kew near the Lake, are very ornamental. They are of grey-green aspect, with leaflets velvety to the touch on the upper surface even in late summer. The tallest of these, pl. 1924, measures 50 × 312 ft (1969). The tree received as F. velutina var. coriacea, growing nearby, has much darker green, more glabrous leaflets. F. velutina should be more widely planted in the drier parts of eastern and south-eastern England.



From the Supplement (Vol. V)

specimens: Kew, 48 × 334 ft (1976) and, var. toumeyi, pl. 1939, 30 × 312 ft (1981); Talbot Manor, Norfolk, pl. 1946, 48 × 3 ft (1978); Edinburgh Botanic Garden, var. coriacea, 48 × 3 ft (1978).

Genus

Fraxinus

Other species in the genus