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Fraxinus pennsylvanica Marsh. Red ash

Cluster of developing fruit

Habitat

Red ash typically occurs along banks of larger rivers or along shores of larger lakes in the western half of New Brunswick. It is often associated with silver maple and various willows.

Form

Red ash is a small to medium-sized tree that can grow to heights of up to 25 m and to stem diameters of up to 60 cm. In New Brunswick, however, at the northeastern extremity of its large range, it is usually no more than about 15 m tall and 45 cm in stem diameter. The crown is generally irregularly rounded to pyramidal, or the tree takes on a somewhat shrubby form.

Forest grown tree

Morphology

The leaves are deciduous, pinnately compound, 20–40 cm long, and borne in pairs with each pair at right angles to the previous one. Each leaf has five, seven, or nine leaflets, but seven is by far the most common number. The leaflets are short stalked, 8–15 cm long, oval and taper pointed, with smooth to wavy margins that are toothed about the middle, and undersurfaces that are densely hairy. The short leaflet stalks, and the rachis and petiole of the leaf are all hairy. Leaflets tend to fall separately in the autumn.

Twigs of three ashes; white ash (left), red ash (right), and black ash (center)

The twigs are stout, reddish to greyish brown, and somewhat downy with short reddish hairs that are retained longest near the buds towards the ends of the twigs. The buds are reddish brown and closely downy. The terminal bud is pyramidal to rounded, with the uppermost pair of lateral buds touching it. The lateral buds are smaller, round to round pointed, and each is set above a shallow indentation in the upper edge of a half-rounded leaf scar that carries mostly scattered vein scars.

Cluster of male flowers

The flowers are borne from lateral buds in oppositely branched, hairy stemmed, extended clusters, the male ones being more compact in bloom than the female ones. Male and female flower clusters occur on different trees, so it is only on female trees that the flowers go on to produce fruits. The 25- to 40-mm long fruits each have a sausage-shaped seed pocket, from which, at about half way along its length, a flattened, elliptically rounded or notch?tipped wing extends.

Clusters of female flowers after blooming stage

Fruits-wings start mid-way along the seed pockets

The bark is smooth and reddish grey to reddish brown when young. As the bark ages, it breaks into narrow, irregular, somewhat rounded, greyish-brown ridges that tend to intersect in irregular, diamond-shaped patterns. From a distance, in winter, the reddish hue of the younger branches is often apparent.

Reddish bark of a young stem,
4 cm in diameter

Bark of a older stem, 28 cm in diameter

Notes

Red ash wood is not generally distinguished from that of white ash, so it has similar uses. However, the relatively small size of red ash trees limits its use.

Red ash (usually its more western variety generally known as green ash) is often planted as an ornamental, or along avenues as a roadside species. Green ash is much less hairy in all its parts than is the native red ash.

As indicated in the notes for white ash, the descriptions of the three native ash species should be compared for easy species recognition.