Ash is the common name for any member of the genus Fraxinus, of the family Oleaceae, comprising about 70 species of mostly northern temperate trees and shrubs.
The name of the ash tree comes from the Old English word “aesc”, meaning spear.
Characteristic of the Ash are the small, inconspicuous greenish flowers, usually borne in clusters with or without sepals and petals. These appear in early spring and produce dry, single-winged fruits called samaras. They are also known as keys, wingnuts or helicopter seeds.
The finely toothed leaves are opposite on the stems and are compound, bearing an odd number of leaflets.
The timber is of importance and is used to make handles, various tools, baseball and softball bats and bows. It also makes very good firewood. Ash trees are also perfect material for old fashion shafts for bow and arrows.
Some Fender Stratocaster and Telecaster guitars are made of ash, (such as Bruce Springsteen's Telecaster on the Born to Run album cover).
In Norse Mythology, the world tree Yggdrasil, which binds together heaven, earth and hell, is an ash tree. In the tree, which drops honey, sit an eagle, a squirrel and four stags. Close to its roots live the three sisters, the Norns, who representing past, present and future, brought time from the land of the Giants and so ended the great age of the gods.
The first man, Askr, was formed from an ash. The first woman was made from an alder.
In North America, ashes have been subject for several decades to a disease that usually kills a stricken tree in ten years. It has killed tens of millions of trees in 22 states in the United States. No preventative has been found for the disease, which is caused by the emerald ash borer, a wood-boring beetle accidentally introduced to North America from eastern Asia via solid wood packing material in the late 1980s to early 1990s.
The European ash, Fraxinus excelsior, has been affected by the fungus Hymenoscyphus fraxineus, that has caused a chronic fungal disease in a large number of trees since the mid-1990s, particularly in eastern and northern Europe. The disease has infected about 90% of Denmark's ash trees.
Source Funk & Wagnells Encyclopedia
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| Ash tree |
Characteristic of the Ash are the small, inconspicuous greenish flowers, usually borne in clusters with or without sepals and petals. These appear in early spring and produce dry, single-winged fruits called samaras. They are also known as keys, wingnuts or helicopter seeds.
The finely toothed leaves are opposite on the stems and are compound, bearing an odd number of leaflets.
The timber is of importance and is used to make handles, various tools, baseball and softball bats and bows. It also makes very good firewood. Ash trees are also perfect material for old fashion shafts for bow and arrows.
Some Fender Stratocaster and Telecaster guitars are made of ash, (such as Bruce Springsteen's Telecaster on the Born to Run album cover).
In Norse Mythology, the world tree Yggdrasil, which binds together heaven, earth and hell, is an ash tree. In the tree, which drops honey, sit an eagle, a squirrel and four stags. Close to its roots live the three sisters, the Norns, who representing past, present and future, brought time from the land of the Giants and so ended the great age of the gods.
The first man, Askr, was formed from an ash. The first woman was made from an alder.
In North America, ashes have been subject for several decades to a disease that usually kills a stricken tree in ten years. It has killed tens of millions of trees in 22 states in the United States. No preventative has been found for the disease, which is caused by the emerald ash borer, a wood-boring beetle accidentally introduced to North America from eastern Asia via solid wood packing material in the late 1980s to early 1990s.
The European ash, Fraxinus excelsior, has been affected by the fungus Hymenoscyphus fraxineus, that has caused a chronic fungal disease in a large number of trees since the mid-1990s, particularly in eastern and northern Europe. The disease has infected about 90% of Denmark's ash trees.
Source Funk & Wagnells Encyclopedia
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