Fraxinus pennsylvanica

COMMON NAME: Green Ash; Red Ash

FAMILY: Olive Family; Oleaceae

GROWTH HABIT: Pyramidal in youth, becoming an open, upright oval, 50 - 60 ft. tall.

FOLIAGE: Opposite, pinnately compound, deciduous. 10 - 12 in. long, with 5 - 9 leaflets. Leaflets 4 - 6 in. long, oblong-lanceolate to elliptic. margins smooth or toothed; glabrous or pubescent below. Peiolules 1/8 - 1/4 in. long, narrowly lanceolate.

BUDS: Rounded, dark-brown, set above leaf scar.

BARK: Brown, scaly and fissures.

FLOWERS: Male and female on separate trees or on the same tree. The male in crowded clusters, the female in more open stringy clusters. Appear about the same times as leaves, greenish purple. No petals and calyx shallowly toothed and cup-shaped.

FRUIT: Samara, 1 - 2 in. long. In several species shaped like the blade of a canoe paddle.

NATIVE HABITAT: Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick south to northern Florida; west to eastern Texas, northeastern Colorado, Montana, and Saskatchewan.

CULTIVARS: Marshall's seedless - Male tree with shiny dark-green foliage. good yellow fall color.