Page:TheTreesOfGreatBritainAndIreland vol04B.djvu/239

The common ash is spread through almost all Europe, and occurs also in the Caucasus.

The northern limit in Europe passes from the Trondhjem fjord in Norway, about lat. 63° 40’, through Sweden at about lat. 61°, and in Finland extends to lat. 62°, descending from there through Russia in a S.E. direction to Riazan, whence it continues N.N.E. to Kazan, its extreme eastern point in Europe. From Kazan, the eastern limit descends in a S.W. direction through Penza, Saratof, and Voronej to Kharkof, and then passes by Ekaterinoslav to the Crimea. In the Caucasus’ the ash does not occur north of the rivers Kuban and Terek. The southern limit extends from the Transcaucasian province of Talysch through Asia Minor and Turkey to Dalmatia, and across Italy and southern France to the Pyrenees. In the Iberian peninsula’ it is met with, according to Willkomm, in the mountains of Catalonia, Aragon, Burgos, Santander, Leon, Asturias, Galicia, and northern Portugal. The western limit takes in the western coast of France and the British Isles. Outside the range mentioned above, it occurs as small scrub in rare situations, as in Norway at Tromsö (lat. 69° 40’), and in the government of St. Petersburg.

An ash occurs in the western Himalayan region which, according to most of the authorities, is Fraxinus excelsior. It has been distinguished as a distinct species by Wenzig,® and, so far as I can judge from dried specimens, is very different indeed from the common ash. Sir George Watt informs me that this ash is always an insignificant tree, never attaining more than 30 feet in height and a foot in girth.

The ash is generally met with growing wild as isolated trees or in small groups in the continental forests, but pure woods of some extent occur in moist situations, as in river valleys subject to flooding, in Hungary, Slavonia, Poland, and Russia. In northern regions it is rather a tree of the plains and valleys than of the mountains ; but in southern Europe it is only met with in the mountains. It ascends in south Tyrol to 4000 feet, and in Switzerland to about 4400 feet.

The ash is a true native of the British Isles, and has been found in a fossil state in the interglacial beds at Hitchin in Hertfordshire, and in neolithic deposits at Crossness in Essex.*

It may be said to occur wild in every part of the British Isles, except in the northern part of Scotland, where, however, it bears the climate in plantations. In Yorkshire® it ascends to 1250 feet elevation. In Braemar, H. B. Watt® observed it up to 1200 feet. In Ireland’ it is frequent in woods, hedges, and rocky places ; and ascends in Donegal to 800 feet, in Down to 1000 feet, and in Wicklow to 1300 feet.

1 It ascends in the Caucasus to 6000 feet, according to Radde, Pianzenverbreitung in den Kaukasusländern, 181 (1899).

2 Cf. Captain Widdrington’s account of the distribution of the ashes in Spain, given under Fraxinus angustifolia, p. 880.

3 Fraxinus Hookeri, Wenzig, in Engler, Bot. Jahrb. iv. 179 (1883). It differs from the common ash in having fewer leaflets, usually five, rarely seven. The bud is also very distinct, being dark yellow in colour, and covered with minute warts. The leaflets are sessile, oval, broadly cuneate at the base, acuminate at the apex, pale beneath, with pubescence on each side of the midrib, minutely crenulate-serrate. The rachis appears to have a wide open groove above; and the fruit in its lower part is longitudinally and deeply grooved in the middle line.

4 C. Reid, Origin Brit. Flora, 133 (1899).

5 Lees, Flora of W. Yorkshire, 322 (1888).

6 Cairngorm Club Journal, iv. 114 (1903).

Cybele Hibernica, 236 (1898).