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The Ash

Quick Notes about the Ash Take me here now

The Facts

Tree Type: This has been a very widespread deciduous tree with oval slightly pointed leaves which grow symmetrically on each side of the stem down to a single leaf at the end. The young trees have smooth beige grey bark, which becomes more ridged as they grow older. Under good conditions they grow straight and very tall.

Location: The Ash has been a major part of mixed forest in Europe for centuries, but also likes hedgerows.

Ecology: The ash produces small clusters of rather boring flowers, followed by seeds with a single ‘wing’ to catch the wind. The seed clusters stay on the branches long after the leaves have dropped off for the winter.

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The Legends 

European ash trees are in danger of extinction from a fungus infection. Some countries have already lost most of their ash trees to ‘dieback’ as the organism slowly dies over several years. English ashes may soon be as rare as elms.

Ash wood is particularly useful for making tool handles and poles, as it grows naturally straight and is smooth to the touch. The name has its origin in ancient English word for ‘spear’.

In Norse mythology the nine worlds are connected by Yggdrasil, a giant evergreen ash tree which provides the axis on which the world is supported. Odin hung himself on the tree for nine nights in search of divine wisdom.

Make sure your volume is on: "A much prized tree"

Show transcript

So we have the ash – Fraxinus excelsior – a native tree to the UK and Europe. Beautiful tree, absolutely gorgeous. Has kind of a grey-green bark and small leaflets which are great for letting dappled light down onto the woodland floor. Very much prized tree just like oak really, it has been loved by many for many years.

Unfortunately we are now at the stage where now we have ash dieback which has entered into the country about twelve years ago and is slowly killing all our ash trees. Denmark has had it, and they lost 98% of all their ash trees, and we are likely to lose the same over a period of time.

We are standing under one that looks reasonably healthy at the moment, it has still got all its leaves, but just behind it we can see two more ash trees where the crowns are dying back – you can see all the little twigs in the top have lost all their leaves, the bark has gone more of a light brown colour rather than a grey-green. And the disease is slowly turning the wood to mush, slowly killing it. And you might have a healthy-ish tree, it’s still got lots of leaves, but because it is weakened by the disease you might have other pathogens come in, such as honey fungus, which attacks the roots and so they can just fall over at any time.

So we are in the process of looking at all our high-risk areas, public areas, and we will be taking out a lot of our ash trees. But then replanting with many other trees to mitigate against it.

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