FAMILY: OLEACEAE
ALTERNATE COMMON NAME:
LEAVES: deciduous, opposite, odd-pinnately compound, to ca. 12” long, with 5-9 leaflets (usually 7); leaflet stalks winged with leaf tissue for most of their lengths; leaflets to ca. 4” long by 2” wide, generally lanceolate, tips short-acuminate, bases obtuse to acute (rounded in lowermost leaflet pair), margins entire or irregularly toothed; leaflets surfaces dark green and glabrous above, paler green and glabrous to short-pubescent (hairs not entangled) along midrib and proximally along major lateral veins
FLOWER: unisexual, plants dioecious; inconspicuous and unremarkable
FRUIT: samara to ca. 2” long and 0.25” wide, born in large clusters; wing is paddle-shaped and is decurrent along the seed-bearing portion to about one-half of its length
TWIGS: umoderately stout, often flattened at nodes, grayish green, pubescent when young and becoming glabrous; leaf scars shield shaped
BARK: gray, tight, furrowed with interlacing ridges forming a diamond pattern
FORM: medium to large tree to ca. 100’ tall and 24” dbh; fast growing; base of trunk swollen when growing in areas flooded for long intervals
HABITAT: bottomland hardwood forests along large and smaller rivers, wet hardwood flatwoods, ruderal forests in wet areas
WETLAND DESIGNATION: Facultative Wetland (FACW): Usually occurs in wetlands, but may occur in non-wetlands of the Atlantic and Gulf Coast Plain Region
RANGE: Quebec and Manitoba southward into US Great Plains and to Gulf Coast, east to Atlantic Coast [USGS Range Map]
USES: valuable hardwood, wood used for tool handles, furniture, interior finishing; also fuel; ornamental
WILDLIFE: genus Fraxinus is an important deer browse; many birds and mammals eat the seeds
Best Recognition Features:
- gray bark with diamond ridge pattern
- opposite, odd-pinnate leaves; leaflet stalks winged
- wing of samara partly decurrent along seed bearing portion
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