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Blue ash

Silhouette - blue ash
  • Latin name: Fraxinus quadrangulata Michx.
  • French name: Frêne bleu
  • Taxonomic Serial Number: 32947
Description

Leaves

  • Leaf - blue ash
  • Leaflet - blue ash

Form

  • Pinnately compound
  • 5–11 leaflets on a central stalk
  • Short-stalked
  • Base asymmetrical

Length

  • Leaflets 8–14 cm
  • Leaflets and central stalk 13–25 cm

Margin

  • Coarsely toothed

Buds

  • Lateral bud and leaf scar - blue ash

Form

  • Terminal bud present

Twigs

  • Winter twig - blue ash
  • Twig cross section showing conspicuous ridges - blue ash

Form

  • 4-sided, with 4 conspicuous ridges or wings

Flowers

Form

  • Panicles

Structure

  • Synoecious

Floral timing

  • With the leaves

Fruits

  • Fruit - blue ash

Form

  • Wing broad, twisted, often notched at the tip
  • Enclosing flattened seedcase

Structure

  • Samara

Bark

Form

  • With age broken into irregular fissures and loose scaly plates
  • Appears shaggy

Colour

  • Inner bark turns blue when exposed

Wood

Texture

  • Hard, heavy, strong, coarse-grained

Size

Height

  • To 20 m

Diameter

  • To 25 cm

Tree form

  • Silhouette - blue ash

Forest-grown

Trunk

  • Slightly tapered

Crown

  • Narrow, often irregular, branches spreading

Habitat

Site

  • Found on floodplains and on limestone outcrops
  • The most drought-resistant of the native ashes

Associated species

  • Occurs as a scattered tree with white ash, black ash, chinquapin oak, black walnut,
  • and other southern broadleaf trees

Range

In Canada, southwestern Ontario; in the United States, Wisconsin and Michigan south to Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Alabama

COSEWIC Status

Special concern

Photos
Distribution map
Distribution map - blue ash