ash

[thedeeredude]

Could anyone post a good tutorial on identifying the different ash trees.  Around here we have white green and black mostly. How do you tell the difference?  I can spot an ash tree yards off but couldnt tell ya which variety.  Truth be told, I cant tell my ash from a hole in the ground. ;D

[Clark]

Well, here's a start.

From the sounds of it you might be trying to identify ash that have been planted in a city or someone's yard?  Since moving out to the west coast I've given up trying to identify many city trees.  There are a number of ash cultivars which are breed for different features but the morphological features may not stay within traditional white/green/black ash guidelines.  All that to say, a certain cultivar of ash may have features of both white and green ash which will make positive identification difficult and frustrating. 

If you're ID'ing trees in the woods the differences will be more in line with different guides and life will be fairly pleasant.

Just the other day a friend wanted me to ID a tree for him.  By the time we got to the tree light was fast fading and I had never seen this tree before.  Not noting the opposite branching pattern I guessed a willow of some sort.  Turns out it was a raywood ash which is native to Turkey.  Like I even had a chance!

Clark

[Lanier_Lurker]

It looks like I have some work to do when it comes to distinguishing between ash and hickory.   :P

[Riles]

No, that's the easy part, ash is opposite. The hard part is telling the ashes apart (or the hickories apart). You'd think the names would give it away (green, white, black, blue), but no.

[SwampDonkey]

red/green

leaf: 7-9 (usually 7) short petioluled (secondary leaf stems of a compound leaf joined to the main leaf axis) leaflets.

flowers: imperfect, born before leaves

twig: flattened at nodes, may be pubescent, rusty brown pubescent terminal bud, leaf scar almost straight along upper edge, bundle scars V-shaped or U-shaped

bark: same as white, but not so deeply furrowed on mature trees.


white

leaf: 5-9, 11 or 13 (usually 7) short petioluled leaflets



flowers: imperfect, born before or after leaves

twig: purplish or dark green, lenticellate, terminal bud with 4-6 brown scales, first lateral bud pair at same level as terminal, leaf scar notched at the top, leave bundle scar (where sap flow happened) U-shaped.



U-shaped bundle scares (row of little black dots), more clear in image below



tight lateral buds (facing screen) at terminal

bark: orange-brown on young trees, becoming ash gray, deep furrowed diamond-shaped narrow interlacing ridges, becoming scaly on old trees.



black

leaf: 7-13 sessile (no stem) leaflets joined to main leaf axis.



turns yellow in fall

flowers: perfect and imperfect, born before leaves



twigs: grayish, buds conical and dark brown to black, lateral buds rounded and first pair of lateral buds lower down the stem from terminal



bark: gray-brown, corky, furrowed




Most distinguished features are colored.

[Riles]

See, what'd I tell ya? The Donk's black ash is green and his white ash is red. I'm still looking for the pumpkin ash that's supposed to be native here, but now I suspect it's not really orange...

[WDH]

With ash, the key to positive ID is the samara (Fruit).  In white ash, the wing of the samara does not extend past the seed.  The wing terminates at the tip of the seed.  In green ash, the wing extends down about half the length of the seed.  In black ash, the seed body itself is very indistinct, you practically cannot see any seed at all (it looks all wing with no apparent seed).

One quick and dirty test to tell white ash from green ash.  Hold up a twig about a foot away and look where the leaf petiole attaches to the twig from the side in profile.  In white ash, the end of the petiole usually totally surrounds the bud, and you cannot see the bud sticking up above the petiole.  If you pull off the leaf petiole, you will see that the scar from the petiole (called a leaf scar) is very deeply u-shaped.  This very deep u-shaped petiole usually encases and hides the bud when viewed from the side. 

In green ash, the leaf scar is half round or shallowly u-shaped.  Held out in profile viewed from the side, you can see the bud sticking its head above the point where the petiole attaches to the twig.  That, and the amount that the seed wing extends along the body of the seed is about the only way to tell green ash from white ash.  I am not very familiar with black ash, but I do know that the samara is very different than white ash or green ash.

Sometimes it is hard to coax down a samara from an ash, though.  They can be shy, especially if it a male ;D.  Ash is dioecious, with male and female plants.  The boys will not have samaras, only the girls, so make sure that you are dealing with a girl if you try the seed test :.

[Riles]

Here's another site for reference:

http://ohioline.osu.edu/for-fact/0055.html