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in the axils of the leaf-scars. Fruit oblong; body compressed with a longitudinal furrow on each surface, and many-rayed; wing long and obliquely truncate at the apex. Buds very small, with two outer scales pinnately lobed.
This remarkable ash was observed by Sir Joseph Hooker in South Morocco.’ It also occurs in the mountainous regions of Algeria in the valleys at 4000 to 6000 feet altitude. In dry situations it remains a bush with very rigid and almost spiny branches, and rarely flowers even when very old. On the banks of streams it grows to be a small tree and produces flowers and fruit. The wood is very hard and heavy, with a satin-like lustre.
This species is rarely seen? except in botanical gardens, where, as at Kew, it grows to be a small tree, remarkable for its diminutive foliage. It has smooth grey bark. (A.H.)
FRAXINUS XANTHOXYLOIDES
- Fraxinus xanthoxyloides, Wallich, List, 2833; C.B. Clarke, in Hooker, Fl. Brit, India, iii. 606 (1882); Brandis, Indian Trees, 444 (1906).
This species is probably only a pubescent geographical form of Fraxinus dimorpha, which it resembles exactly in habit. The young shoots are covered with a minute dense pubescence. The leaflets only differ from those of F. dimorpha in having a scattered pubescence all over the lower surface; the rachis of the leaf is also pubescent.
This species occurs in Baluchistan, Afghanistan, and the north-west Himalayan region, at altitudes of 3000 to 9000 feet, growing mainly in dry valleys, where it is often gregarious. It is reported to attain a height of 25 feet.
It is rare in cultivation, and forms a small tree, scarcely distinguishable in appearance from F. dimorpha. (A.H.)
FRAXINUS POTAMOPHILA
- Fraxinus potamophila, Herder, in Bull. Soc. Imp. Mosc., xii. 65 (1868); Dippel, Laubholzkunde, i. 98, fig. 54 (1889).
A small tree; branchlets glabrous. Leaflets (Plate 262, Fig. 8) small, seven to nine, about 1½ to 3 inches long, stalked (petiolules glabrous, ½ inch or more in length), ovate, tapering unequally at the base, acute at the apex, coarsely serrate, the serrations often ending in long points; glabrous on both surfaces. Rachis of the leaf with angled edges on its upper side, enclosing a shallow groove. Flowers
1 Hooker and Ball, Tour in Morocco, 176 (1878); Ball, in Journ. Linn. Soc. (Bot.), xvi. 564 (1878).
2 A tree at Coombe Wood, which had attained almost 25 feet in height, was destroyed in 1907. Mr. A.B. Jackson has seen small specimens at Barron’s nursery, Elvaston, where they were erroneously named E. lentiscifolia.