FIELD ID CHARACTERISTICS:
Samaras oval-shaped and flat or multi-winged, often pink or red-purple. Samaras are very wide and winged to the base, unlike in other North Carolina ashes.
Synonym(s): Fraxinus caroliniana, Fraxinus pauciflora
Description: Small deciduous tree to 8 m, with smooth bark, often with several trunks.
Leaves: Opposite, pinnately compound; 5 to 9 oval or lance-shaped leaflets with entire or irregularly toothed margins. Seedling leaves are often not compound.
Flowers/Fruit: Small flowers in dense clusters, appearing at or before leaf-out; male and female growing on separate trees. Fruit is a flat widened oval-shaped samara. Flowers mainly in May; fruits July to October.
Habit and Range: Grows only in the deeper swamps along river bottoms in the Coastal Plain. Common in the Coastal Plain but rare in the Piedmont. Stands are rapidly declining because of the emerald ash borer, which strongly attacks this species, causing much mortality.
COMMON CONFUSIONS:
Note opposite branches, and more slender twigs in Fraxinus spp. (ash) than Carya spp. (hickories), which have similar compound leaves, but have alternate branches and nuts for fruit. F. caroliniana can be difficult to distinguish from Fraxinus pennsylvanica (green ash) without fruit, especially in the Coastal Plain where both species are common.
Click here to view Fraxinus pennsylvanica.
Link to side-by-side comparisons page
