Woodland Gleanings Part 3

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE ASH-TREE.]

THE ASH-TREE.

[_Fraxinus._[B] Nat. Ord.--_Oleaceae_; Linn.--_Dian. Monog._]

[B] _Generic characters._ Calyx none, or deeply 4-cleft. Corolla none, or of 4 petals. Perianth single, or none. Fruit a 2-celled, 2-seeded capsule, flattened and foliaceous at the extremity (a _samara_). Name from [Greek: phraxis], separation, on account of the ease with which the wood may be split.

The Common Ash (_F. excelsior_), is one of the n.o.blest of our forest-trees, and generally carries its princ.i.p.al stem higher than the oak, rising in an easy flowing line. Its chief beauty, however, consists in the lightness of its whole appearance. Its branches at first keep close to the trunk, and form acute angles with it; but as they begin to lengthen, they commonly take an easy sweep; and the looseness of the leaves corresponding with the lightness of the spray, the whole forms an elegant depending foliage. Nothing can have a better effect than an old Ash hanging from the corner of a wood, and bringing off the heaviness of the other foliage with its loose pendent branches.

And yet in some soils, the Ash loses much of its beauty in the decline of age. The foliage becomes rare and meagre; and its branches, instead of hanging loosely, start away in disagreeable forms; thus the Ash often loses that grandeur and beauty in old age, which the generality of trees, and particularly the oak, preserve till a late period of their existence.

The Ash also falls under the displeasure of the picturesque eye on another account, that is, from its leaf being much tenderer than that of the oak, it sooner receives impressions from the winds and frosts.

Instead, therefore, of contributing its tint in the wane of the year among the many-coloured offspring of the woods, it shrinks from the blast, drops its leaf, and in each scene where it predominates, leaves wide blanks of desolated boughs, amidst foliage yet fresh and verdant.

Before its decay, we sometimes see its leaf tinged with a fine yellow, well contrasted with the neighbouring greens. But this is one of Nature's casual beauties. Much oftener its leaf decays in a dark, muddy, unpleasing tint. And yet, sometimes, notwithstanding this early loss of its foliage, we see the Ash, in a sheltered situation, when the rains have been abundant and the season mild, retain its light pleasant green, when the oak and the elm, in its neighbourhood, have put on their autumnal attire. The leaves of the common Ash were used as fodder for cattle by the Romans, who esteemed them better for that purpose than those of any other tree: and in this country, in various districts, they were used in the same manner.

The common Ash is indigenous to northern and central Europe, to the north of Africa, and to j.a.pan. The Romans, it is said, named it _Fraxinus, quia facile frangitur_, to express the fragile nature of the wood, as the boughs of it are easily broken. It is supposed that the name of Ash has been given to this tree, because the bark of the trunk and branches is of the colour of wood ashes. Some, however, affirm that the word is derived from the Saxon _aesc_, a pike.

It is recorded in the fables of the ancients, that Love first made his arrows of this wood. The disciples of Mars used ashen poles for lances:

A lance of tough ground Ash the Trojan threw, Rough in the rind and knotted as it grew.

aeneid.

Virgil says that the spears of the Amazons were formed of this wood, and Homer sings the mighty ashen spear of Achilles:

The n.o.ble Ash rewards the planter's toil; n.o.ble, since great Achilles from her side Took the dire spear by which brave Hector died.

Rapin.

It is said, in the Edda, that the Ash was held in high veneration, and that man was formed from its wood. Hesiod, in like manner, deduces his brazen race of men from the Ash.

The warlike Ash, that reeks with human blood.

There are many remarkable Ash-trees in various parts of the country. One at Woburn Abbey measures at the ground twenty-three feet in circ.u.mference; at twelve inches from the ground, it is twenty feet; and fifteen feet three inches at three feet from the ground. It is ninety feet high, and the ground overshadowed by its branches is one hundred and thirteen feet in diameter. The trunk of another, near Kennety Church, in King's County, is twenty-one feet ten inches in circ.u.mference, and seventeen feet high, before the branches break out, which are of enormous bulk. There formerly stood in the church-yard of Kilmalie, in Lochaber, an Ash that was considered the largest and most remarkable tree in the Highlands. Lochiel and his numerous kindred and clan held it in great veneration for generations, which is supposed to have hastened its destruction; it being burnt to the ground by the brutal soldiery in 1746. In one direction its diameter was seventeen feet three inches, and the cross diameter twenty-one feet; its circ.u.mference at the ground was fifty-eight feet!

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Specific characters of F. excelsior. Common Ash._ Leaves pinnate, with lanceolate, serrated leaflets: flowers dest.i.tute 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 leaf-like termination, generally of two cells, each containing a flat oblong seed. This beautiful tree a.s.sumes 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.]

Trees raised from the keys of the Ash are decidedly the best. The "keys," or tongues, should be gathered from a young thriving tree when they begin to fall (which is about the end of October), 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 pa.s.sing 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 Oxfords.h.i.+re_ 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 pus.h.i.+ng 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 b.u.t.ter 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.

Pope.

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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE BEECH-TREE]

THE BEECH-TREE.

[_f.a.gus._[C] Nat. Ord.--_Amentiferae_; Linn.--_Monoec. Poly._]

[C] _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 p.r.i.c.kly involucre. Stigma 3.

Ovaries 3-cornered and 3-celled. Nut by abortion 1 or 2-seeded. Named from [Greek: phago], to eat.

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 among timber-trees; its wood being of a soft, spongy nature, sappy, and alluring to the worm. Neither will Gilpin allow that, in point of picturesque beauty, it should rank much higher than in point of utility. Its skeleton, compared with that of the oak, the ash, or the elm, he says, is very deficient; yet its trunk is often highly picturesque, being frequently studded with bold k.n.o.bs and projections, and having sometimes a sort of irregular fluting about it, which is very characteristic. It has another peculiarity, also, which is somewhat pleasing--that of a number of stems arising from the root. The bark, too, wears often a pleasant hue. It is naturally of a dingy olive; but it is always overspread, in patches, with a variety of mosses and lichens, which are commonly of a lighter tint in the upper parts, and of a deep velvet green towards the root. Its smoothness, also, contrasts agreeably with these rougher appendages. No bark tempts the lover so much to make it the depository of his mistress's name. In days of yore, it seems to have commonly served as the lover's tablet. In Dryden's translation of Virgil's _Eclogues_, we find the following:--

Or shall I rather the sad verse repeat, Which on the Beech's bark I lately writ-- I writ, and sang betwixt.

There seems to have been connected with this custom the curious idea, that as the tree increased in growth, so would the words, and also the hopes expressed thereon:

The rind of every plant her name shall know, And as the rind extends the love shall grow.

Our own Thomson, too, narrates that Musidora carved, on the soft bark of a Beech-tree, the confession of her attachment to Damon: