Common Name: Ash, White
Latin Name: Fraxinus americana
Address: 6486 Hillsboro Lane, Crozet
GPS Coordinates: 38.047121 -78.724790
White ash is suitable as a shade tree in a recreational play area, planted along a street, or used in a children’s, butterfly or native garden.
The juice from leaves relieves the swelling and itching of mosquito bites and has a folkloric use as a prophylactic measure for snake bites. The tough, elastic wood has a pleasing grain and is used to make tennis racquets, hockey sticks, oars, furniture, interior floors and the Louisville Slugger baseball bat.
Planting new ash trees is no longer recommended due to the trees’ susceptibility to the emerald ash borer, a pest that feeds under the bark and bores into the wood. Emerald ash borer will typically kill an ash tree within 3 to 5 years after infestation and, once infestation occurs, it is difficult to eradicate.
“How many thousand-thousand of untold white ash trees are the respected companions of our doorways, kindliest trees in the clearing beyond the cabin? No one can say. But this is a tree whose grave and lofty character makes it a lifelong friend. White ash has no easy, pretty charms like dogwood and redbud; it makes no over-dramatic gestures like weeping willow and Lombardy poplar. It has never been seen through sentimental eyes, like the elm and the white birch. Strong, tall, cleanly, benignant, the ash tree with self-respecting surety waits, until you have sufficiently admired all the more obvious beauties of the forest, for you to discover at last its unadorned greatness.” – Donald Culross Peattie, A Natural History of Trees