Dictionary:

ash²

  (ăsh)

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ash2

white ash Fraxinus americana (Elizabeth Morales)

1. Any of various chiefly deciduous ornamental or timber trees of the genus Fraxinus, having opposite, pinnately compound leaves, clusters of small flowers, and one-seeded winged fruits.
2. The strong, elastic wood of this tree, used for furniture, tool handles, and sporting goods such as baseball bats.
3. Linguistics. The letter æ in Old English and some modern phonetic alphabets, representing the vowel sound of Modern English ash.

[Middle English asshe, from Old English æsc.]

A genus, Fraxinus, of deciduous trees of the olive family Oleaceae, order Scrophulariales, which have opposite, pinnate leaflets, except in one species, F. anomala, which has only a single leaflet. There are about 65 species in the Northern Hemisphere. This tree occurs in America south to Mexico, in Asia south to Java, and in Europe. See also Scrophulariales.

The white ash (F. americana), of the eastern United States, has stalked leaflets, rusty-colored winter buds, and an erect trunk that is valuable for lumber. The wood is light, strong, but flexible, and is used for oars, baseball bats, furniture, motor vehicle parts, boxes, baskets, and crates. The black ash (F. nigra) grows in wet soils in the northeastern United States and Canada and has sessile leaflets and friable outer bark. The wood of black ash is used for the same purposes as that of white ash. The red ash (F. pennsylvanica), also of the eastern United States and adjacent Canada, has pubescent (hairy) twigs and leafstalks. The uses of the wood of this species are also similar to those of white ash. Some species of ash are ornamental trees, such as the flowering ash (F. ornus) with gray winter buds and white flowers, and the European ash (F. excelsior) with black buds and sessile leaflets. See also Forest and forestry; Tree.

For more information on ash, visit Britannica.com.

A traditional cure, recorded in several counties, for young children with hernias; an ash sapling, preferably one grown from seed and never touched by a knife, was split down the middle and held open with wedges, the child was passed through the gap, and the damaged tree tightly bound up—as its cleft healed, so the hernia would disappear. Descriptions of the procedure from the 19th century include further ritualistic details: it must be done at dawn, with the child naked and held face up; or it must be done by nine people, from west to east, on nine successive mornings; or it must be done at midnight, nine times, in complete silence. The tree must not be cut down during the child's lifetime.

The tree's other major use was for curing lameness, pains, and swellings in cattle, supposedly caused by a shrew running over them. A shrew would be thrust into a deep hole bored into an ash tree, and the hole plugged up; once the shrew was dead, any animal whipped with twigs from that tree would be cured. A famous shrew-ash in Richmond Park was frequently visited, in the mid-19th century, by women bringing sickly children for healing, especially from whooping cough.

Other beliefs are that snakes cannot bear to be near an ash, or even its leaves or a stick cut from its wood; and that anyone carrying ash-keys cannot be bewitched. A well-known rhyme predicts how rainy the spring will be from the relative dates of budding by oak and ash; another warns that ashes attract lightning:

Avoid the ash,

It draws the flash.

Bibliography
The full bibliography list is available here.

• Vickery, 1995: 14-19
• Opie and Tatem, 1989: 5-8, 355-6

A hard, strong, straight-grained hardwood of the eastern US having good shock resistance and bending qualities; used as flooring, trim, and decorative veneer.

A tree regarded with awe in Celtic countries, especially Ireland. The ash may be any of the various trees of the genus Fraxinus, which usually grow quite tall and have close-grained wood; the mountain ash, rowan, or quicken tree, a smaller tree of the genus Sorbus aucuparia, is usually considered separately in the Celtic imagination.

There are several recorded instances in Irish history in which people refused to cut an ash, even when wood was scarce, for fear of having their own cabins consumed with flame. The ash tree itself might be used in May Day (Beltaine) rites. Under the Old Irish word nin, the ash also gives its name to the letter N in the ogham alphabet. Together with the oak and thorn, the ash is part of a magical trilogy in fairy lore. Ash seedpods may be used in divination, and the wood has the power to ward off fairies, especially on the Isle of Man. In Gaelic Scotland children were given the astringent sap of the tree as a medicine and as a protection against witch-craft. Some famous ash trees were the Tree of Uisnech, the Bough of Dathí, and the Tree of Tortu. The French poet who used Breton sources, Marie de France (late 12th cent.), wrote a lai about an ash tree.

OIr. nin; Irish fuinseog; Scottish Gaelic fuinnseann; Manx unjin; Welsh onnen; Cornish onnen; Breton onnenn. See also FAIRY TREE; TREE.

There are many old superstitions of the wonderful influence of the ash tree. The old Christmas log was of ash wood, and its use was helpful to the future prosperity of the family. Venomous animals, it was said, would not take shelter under its branches. A carriage with its axles made of ash wood was believed to go faster than a carriage with its axles made of any other wood, and tools with handles made of this wood were supposed to enable a man to do more work than he could do with tools whose handles were not of ash. Hence the reason that ash wood is generally used for tool handles. It was upon ash branches that witches were enabled to ride through the air, and those who ate the red buds of the tree on St. John's Eve were rendered invulnerable to witches' influence.

In speaking of the ash, reference was often to the mountain ash or rowan tree.

Sources:

Porteous, Alexander. Forest Folklore, Mythology, and Romance. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1928.

Ash tree
European Ash (Fraxinus excelsior)
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae Division: Magnoliophyta Class: Magnoliopsida Order: Lamiales Family: Oleaceae Genus: Fraxinus Tourn. ex L.
Species
See text

European Ash in flower

Narrow-leafed Ash (Fraxinus angustifolia) shoot with leaves

Closeup of European Ash seeds

19th century illustration of Manna Ash (Fraxinus ornus)

An ash can be any of four different tree genera from four very distinct families (see end of page for disambiguation), but originally and most commonly refers to trees of the genus Fraxinus (from Latin "ash tree") in the olive family Oleaceae. The ashes are usually medium to large trees, mostly deciduous though a few subtropical species are evergreen. The leaves are opposite (rarely in whorls of three), and mostly pinnately-compound, simple in a few species. The seeds, popularly known as keys, are a type of fruit known as a samara. The tree's common English name goes back to the Old English æsc, a word also routinely used in Old English documents to refer to spears made of ash wood.

Selected species

Ashes of eastern North America

• Fraxinus americana White Ash (also called cane ash, Biltmore ash or Biltmore white ash)
• Fraxinus caroliniana Water Ash
• Fraxinus nigra Black Ash (also called swamp ash, basket ash, brown ash, hoop ash, or water ash)
• Fraxinus pennsylvanica Green Ash (also called red ash, swamp ash or water ash)
• Fraxinus profunda (syn. F. tomentosa) Pumpkin Ash (also called red ash)
• Fraxinus quadrangulata Blue Ash

Ashes of western and southwestern North America

• Fraxinus anomala Single-leaf Ash
• Fraxinus cuspidata Fragrant Ash
• Fraxinus dipetala California Ash or Two-petal Ash
• Fraxinus dubia
• Fraxinus gooddingii Goodding's Ash
• Fraxinus greggii Gregg's Ash
• Fraxinus latifolia Oregon Ash
• Fraxinus lowellii Lowell Ash
• Fraxinus papillosa Chihuahua Ash
• Fraxinus purpusii
• Fraxinus rufescens
• Fraxinus texensis Mountain Ash or Texas Ash
• Fraxinus uhdei Shamel Ash or Tropical Ash
• Fraxinus velutina Velvet Ash

Ashes of the Western Palearctic (Europe, north Africa and southwest Asia)

• Fraxinus angustifolia Narrow-leafed Ash
  • Fraxinus angustifolia var. oxycarpa (syn. F. oxycarpa) Caucasian Ash
• Fraxinus excelsior European Ash
• Fraxinus holotricha
• Fraxinus ornus Manna Ash or Flowering Ash
• Fraxinus pallisiae Pallis' Ash

Ashes of the Eastern Palearctic (central & eastern Asia)

• Fraxinus apertisquamifera
• Fraxinus baroniana
• Fraxinus bungeana Bunge's Ash
• Fraxinus chinensis Chinese Ash or Korean Ash
• Fraxinus chiisanensis
• Fraxinus floribunda Himalayan Manna Ash
• Fraxinus griffithii Griffith's Ash
• Fraxinus hubeiensis
• Fraxinus japonica Japanese Ash
• Fraxinus lanuginosa
• Fraxinus longicuspis
• Fraxinus malacophylla
• Fraxinus mandshurica Manchurian Ash
• Fraxinus mariesii Chinese Flowering Ash
• Fraxinus micrantha
• Fraxinus paxiana
• Fraxinus platypoda
• Fraxinus raibocarpa
• Fraxinus sieboldiana Japanese Flowering Ash
• Fraxinus spaethiana Späth's Ash
• Fraxinus trifoliata
• Fraxinus xanthoxyloides Afghan Ash

Threats

The emerald ash borer Agrilus planipennis, a wood-boring beetle accidentally introduced to North America from eastern Asia with ash wood products in about 1998, has killed millions of trees in southeast Michigan, adjacent Ontario, and some isolated smaller areas on eastern North America. It threatens some 7 billion ash trees in North America. Ash is also used as a food plant by the larvae of some Lepidoptera species - see list of Lepidoptera which feed on Ashes.

Uses

The wood is hard (a hardwood), tough and very strong but elastic, extensively used for making bows, tool handles, quality wooden baseball bats, hurley sticks and other uses demanding high strength and resilience. It is also used as material for the bodies of guitars, known for its bright, cutting tone and sustaining quality. Ash veneers are extensively used in office furniture. It also makes excellent firewood. The two most economically important species for wood production are White Ash in eastern North America, and European Ash in Europe. The Green Ash is widely planted as a street tree in the United States. The inner bark of the Blue Ash has been used as a source for a blue dye. The cortex (bark) of Fraxinus rhynchophylla HANCE (Chinese: Ku li bai la shu), Fraxinus chinensis ROXB. (Chinese: Bai la shu), Fraxinus szaboana English (Chinese: Jian ye bai la shu) and Fraxinus stylosa English (Chinese: su zhu bai la shu)are used in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) for diarrhea, dysenteric disorder, and vaginal discharge. It is also good for the eyes where there is symptoms of redness, swelling, and pain. The dosage is 6-12 grams.

Cultural aspects

In Norse mythology, the World Tree Yggdrasil is commonly held to be an ash tree, and the first man, Ask, was formed from an ash tree (the first woman was made from elm). Elsewhere in Europe, snakes were said to be repelled by ash leaves or a circle drawn by an ash branch. Irish folklore claims that shadows from an ash tree damage crops. In Cheshire, it is said that ash could be used to cure warts or rickets. See also the letter ash.

In Greek mythology, the Meliai were nymphs of the ash, perhaps specifically of the Manna Ash (Fraxinus ornus), as dryads were nymphs of the oak. Many echoes of archaic Hellene rites and myth involve ash trees.

The ash exudes a sugary substance that, it has been suggested, was fermented to create the Norse "Mead of Inspiration."[1]

Other name uses (Green Tree)

In North America, the name "Mountain ash" is applied to species of the genus Sorbus, more commonly known in the UK as Rowans and Whitebeams, and the name "Prickly ash" is applied to Zanthoxylum americanum and other Zanthoxylums, all in the family Rutaceae, the rue and citrus family. In Australia, many common eucalyptus species are called ash because they too produce hard, fine-grained timber. The best known of these is the Mountain Ash, the tallest broadleaf tree in the world.

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