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This species was discovered by David Douglas in 1825 on the banks of the Lower Columbia river. It is mentioned by Koch’ as having been in cultivation in the Botanic Garden of Berlin prior to 1872. (A.H.)

This tree is the common ash of north-west America, extending from Puget Sound through western Washington and Oregon and the coast region of California to San Francisco, and along the western foothills of the Sierra Nevada to San Bernardino and San Diego counties. It is an important timber tree in Oregon and Washington, but if it occurs in British Columbia,’ is too scarce to be noticed by Macoun. I saw no trees of great size during either of my visits to the Pacific coast, but Sheldon? says that it attains as much as 100 feet in height and 1 to 4 feet in diameter, and describes the wood as hard, tough, firm, straight-grained, and taking a high polish.

In California, according to Jepson,’ F. oregona only attains a length of 15 to 30 feet, growing along the Sacramento river, and on the banks of the streams of the coast ranges. The leaflets become glabrous with age ; and on this account Lingels- heim ® has distinguished the Californian form as var. gladra.

In England the tree grows well in a young state; but I know of none of any size, except one at Nuneham Court, Oxfordshire, which in 1907 was 63 feet high and 3 feet 8 inches in girth. A tree of F. americana growing near it, and believed to have been planted at the same time, was only 38 feet by 1 foot 8 inches. Sir Charles Strickland has a plantation at Hildenley, Yorkshire, of this species mixed with larch ; and as these trees, when I saw them in 1901, were 20 to 30 feet high, and had ripened seed from which I have raised plants, I think their hardiness in this country is abundantly proved; and that the tree is more likely to succeed in the west and north of England than the eastern American ashes. At Tortworth Court Lord Ducie has made a mixed plantation of F. americana and this species, which are now 20 to 30 feet high at about fifteen years old; but the soil and situation are not very favourable. In 1908 the Oregon ash were bearing seed freely. (H.J.E.)

1 Dendrologie, ii. 1, p. 260 (1872).

2 Piper, Flora of the State of Washington, 449 (1906), says its range is “British Columbia to California, in the coast region”; but gives no localities for British Columbia. It is not mentioned as occurring in Vancouver Island by the authors of Postelsia, the year-book of the Minnesota Seaside Station for 1906,

3 Forest Wealth of Oregon, 32 (1904).

4 Flora W. Mid. California, 2385 (1901).

5 In Engler, Bot. Jahrb. xl. 220 (1907).