Fraxinus nigra

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Fraxinus nigra

Fraxinus nigra (Black Ash) is a species of Fraxinus (ash) native to much of eastern Canada

Canada

Canada is a country occupying most of northern North America, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean....
and the northeastern United States

United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
, from western Newfoundland west to southeastern Manitoba

Manitoba

Manitoba is a prairie provinces in Canada, which has an area of 647,797 square kilometres and a population of 1,207,959 , with more than half located within the Winnipeg Capital Region ....
, and south to Illinois

Illinois

The State of Illinois is a U.S. state of the United States, the 21st to be admitted to the United States. Illinois is the most populous and demographically diverse Midwestern United States state and the fifth most populous state in the nation....
and northern Virginia

Virginia

The Commonwealth of Virginia is an United States U.S. state on the East Coast of the United States of the Southern United States. The state is known as the "Old Dominion" and sometimes as "Mother of Presidents", because it is the birthplace of Lists of United States Presidents by place of birth#By state....
.

It is a medium-sized deciduous

Deciduous

Deciduous means falling off at maturity or tending to fall off and is typically used in reference to trees or shrubs that lose their leaves seasonally and to the shedding of other plant structures such as petals after flowering or fruit when ripe....
tree

TREE

TREE was a Boston hardcore punk band formed in the summer of 1990. They were active in the Boston music scene until disbanding in 2002....
reaching 15–20 m (exceptionally 26 m) tall with a trunk up to 60 cm (exceptionally 160 cm) diameter. The bark

BARK

BARK was an early Electromechanics. BARK was built using standard phone relays, implementing a 32-bit binary machine and could perform addition in 150 ms and multiplication in 250 ms....
is grey, thick and corky even on young trees, becoming scaly and fissured with age.

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Encyclopedia

Fraxinus nigra (Black Ash) is a species of Fraxinus (ash) native to much of eastern Canada

Canada

United States

Manitoba

Illinois

Virginia

Deciduous

TREE

BARK

Leaf

In botany, a leaf is an above-ground plant Organ specialized for photosynthesis. For this purpose, a leaf is typically flat and thin, to expose the cells containing chloroplast to light over a broad area, and to allow light to penetrate fully into the tissues....
are opposite, pinnate, with 7–13 (most often 9) leaflets; each leaf is 20–45 cm long, the leaflets 7–16 cm long and 2.5–5 cm broad, with a finely toothed margin. The leaflets are sessile, directly attached to the rachis without a petiolule

Petiole (botany)

In botany, the petiole is the small stalk attaching the leaf blade to the Plant stem. The petiole usually has the same internal structure as the stem....
. The flower

Flower

A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproduction structure found in flowering plants . The biological function of a flower is to mediate the union of male sperm with female ovum in order to produce seeds....
s are produced in spring shortly before the new leaves, in loose panicle

Panicle

A panicle is a compound raceme, a loose, much-branched Indeterminate growth inflorescence with Pedicel flowers attached along the secondary branches ....
s; they are inconspicuous with no petals, and are wind-pollinated. The fruit

Fruit

The term fruit has different meanings dependent on context, and the term is not synonymous in food preparation and biology. In botany, which is the scientific study of plants, fruits are the ripened Ovary of flowering plants....
is a samara

Samara (fruit)

A samara is a type of fruit in which a flattened wing of fibrous, papery tissue develops from the ovary wall. A samara is a simple dry fruit and indehiscent ....
2.5–4.5 cm long comprising a single seed

Seed

A seed is a small Plant embryogenesis plant enclosed in a covering called the seed coat, usually with some Food storage. It is the product of the ripened ovule of gymnosperm and angiosperm plants which occurs after fertilization and some growth within the mother plant....
2 cm long with an elongated apical wing 1.5–2 cm long and 6–8 mm broad.

Ecology

It commonly occurs in swamp

Swamp

A swamp is a wetland featuring temporary or permanent inundation of large areas of land, by shallow bodies of water. A swamp generally has a substantial number of hammock , or dry-land protrusions, covered by aquatic vegetation, or vegetation that tolerates periodical inundation....
s, often with the closely related Green Ash. The fall foliage is yellow. Black Ash is one of the first trees to lose its leaves in the fall.

Black Ash is a food plant for the larva

Larva

A larva is a young form of animal with indirect developmental biology, going through or undergoing metamorphosis .The larva can look completely different from the adult form, for example, a caterpillar differs from a butterfly....
e of several species of Lepidoptera

Lepidoptera

Lepidoptera is an order of insect that includes moths and butterfly. It is one of the most speciose orders in the class Insecta, encompassing moths and the three superfamilies of butterfly, skipper , and Hedylidae....
; see List of Lepidoptera that feed on ashes.

Uses

The wood is used by Native Americans of the North East for making baskets and other devices. The Shakers

Shakers

The United Society of Believers in Christ?s Second Appearing, known as the Shakers, is a Protestant religious denomination.Origins...
also made extensive use of the Black Ash for creating baskets. Also called Basket Ash, Brown Ash, Swamp Ash, hoop ash, and water ash. It is also a popular wood for making guitars and basses, due to its good resonant qualities.

Creating Basket Strips

Black ash is unique among all trees in North America in that it does not have fibers connecting the growth rings to each other. This has a wonderful implication for basket makers. Temperate trees form annual growth rings of two types of wood. Spring wood is rapidly laid down early in the growing season and is weak. Summer wood is laid down slowly in the summer and fall, and is much darker and tougher. By literally pounding on the wood with a mallet, the spring wood is crushed, allowing the summer wood to be peeled off in long strips. The absence of the connecting fibers is what allows the summer wood strips to separate. It is these long strips that are trimmed and cleaned and then used in basket weaving.