Blue ash

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Blue ash samaras

Blue ash bark

Blue ash leaf scar

Blue ash leaf scar and flowers

Blue ash leaves

Blue ash leaves

Blue ash bud and leaf scar

Blue ash buds

Blue ash buds and flowers

Blue ash

Blue ash samaras

Blue ash

Morphology

Trunk

Long, with high branches. Crown narrow. Bark light gray, thin with shallow furrows, ridges narrow, flat-topped, irregular.

Twigs

Grayish-brown, strongly 4-angled (square in cross-section), glabrous or finely pubescent, angles often with narrow, corky wings. Lenticels conspicuous, oval, pale. Leaf scar crescent-shaped, bundle scars in a row. Terminal buds grayish-yellow, egg-shaped to conic, ca. 5 mm, tip blunt, velvety hairy; lateral buds smaller, ca. 3.5 mm.

Leaves

Opposite, odd pinnately compound, deciduous, 15 to 25 cm; petiole 4 to 6 cm, glabrous or minutely hairy; leaflets 7-11, terminal petiole 1 to 2 cm, lateral leaflets sessile or short-stalked, leaflets lanceolate to narrowly ovate, 5 to 12 cm long, 2-5 cm wide, base wedge-shaped to rounded, unequal, margins toothed, tip acuminate and often sickle-shaped, upper surface dark green, glabrous, shiny, lower surface paler, somewhat pubescent, especially along veins near base.

Flowers

Before leaves. Inflorescences short, compact clusters at base of terminal bud or in leaf axils; flowers perfect; pedicels 2 to 3 mm; calyx minute, reddish, shed soon after flower opens; petals absent; stamens 2; filaments reddish, broad-based; anthers yellowish-brown; ovary green; style short, stigma red, 2-cleft.

Fruit

Late July in drooping clusters; pedicels 5 to 7 mm; samaras, brown, narrowly oblong, 2.5 to 3.5 cm long, 6 to 8 mm wide, winged; wing extending full length of seed body, shallow notch at tip of wing; seed body flattened, not well differentiated from the wing.

Ecology

Habitat

Dry, rocky hillsides, open, upland woods, stream banks, ravines; often on calcareous soils.

Distribution

Southeast quarter of Kansas

Practical Information

Uses

Early pioneers made a blue dye from the inner bark, which the common name alludes to.

Additional Notes