BLACK Asa (Fraxinus nigra, Marsh.). 50 to 90 feet. Slender, upright tree with narrow head; twigs stout. Bark close textured, dark gray, with interlacing furrows; twigs smooth, gray, with pale lenticels. Wood brown, soft, heavy, tough, splitting into annual layers along the porous spring wood. Buds broadly ovate, almost black, granular-pubescent; inner scales becoming leaf-like. Leaves in May, 12 to 16 Inches long, of 7 to 11 oblong-lanceolate leaflets, all but term inal one sessile; margins with incurving teeth, upper surfaces dark green, smooth; lower pale with rufous hairs in tufts along pale midribs; fall early, after turning rusty brown. Flowers May, before leaves, dicecious, in axillary panicles; stamens dark purple with short filaments; pistils with tang, cleft, purple stigmas, often with abortive stamens below.
Fruit winged keys in open panicles, 8 to 10 inches long; seed flat, short, surrounded by wing which is broad, thin, and con spicuously notched. Preferred habitat, deep, cold swamps and stream borders. Dist.. Newfoundland and north shore of Gulf of St. Lawrence to Manitoba; south to Delaware and the mountains of Virginia, southern Illinois, central Missouri, and northwestern Arkansas. Wood used for furniture, bas kets, chair bottoms, barrel hoops, etc.