Fraxinus ornus

Plant Characteristics

Habit		tree
Height:	⇕	50 ft"ft" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 50.
Width:	⇔	40 cm"cm" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 40.
Lifespan:	⌛	perennial
Bloom:	❀	early spring, mid spring, late spring

Cultivation

Exposure:	☼	sun
Features:	✓	flowers
USDA Zones:		6 to 10
Flower features:	❀	white

Scientific Names

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Fraxinus ornus (Manna Ash or South European Flowering Ash) is a species of Fraxinus native to southern Europe and southwestern Asia, from Spain and Italy north to Austria and the Czech Republic, and east through the Balkans, Turkey, and western Syria to the Lebanon.

It is a medium-sized deciduous tree growing to 15–25 m tall with a trunk up to 1 m diameter. The bark is dark grey, remaining smooth even on old trees. The buds are pale pinkish-brown to grey-brown, with a dense covering of short grey hairs. The leaves are in opposite pairs, pinnate, 20-30 cm long, with 5-9 leaflets; the leaflets are broad ovoid, 5-10 cm long and 2-4 cm broad, with a finely serrated and wavy margin, and short but distinct petiolules 5–15 mm long; the autumn colour is variable, yellow to purplish. The flowers are produced in dense panicles 10–20 cm long after the new leaves appear in late spring, each flower with four slender creamy white petals 5–6 mm long; they are pollinated by insects. The fruit is a slender samara 1.5-2.5 cm long, the seed 2 mm broad and the wing 4–5 mm broad, green ripening brown.

It is frequently grown as an ornamental tree in Europe north of its native range, grown for its decorative flowers (the species is also sometimes called "Flowering Ash"). Some cultivated specimens are grafted on rootstocks of Fraxinus excelsior, with an often very conspicuous change in the bark at the graft line to the fissured bark of the rootstock species.

Read about Fraxinus ornus in the Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture

Fraxinus ornus, Linn. (Ornus europaea, Pers. F. floribunda, Hort., not Wall.). Small tree, becoming 25 ft.: winter-buds gray or brownish tomentulose: lfts. generally 7, stalked, oblong-ovate or ovate, irregularly serrate, rufously pubescent on the midrib beneath. 2-3 ½ in. long: fls. whitish, fragrant, in dense, terminal panicles 3-5 in. long: fr. erect, narrow-oblong, truncate or emarginate at the apex, about 1 in. long. May, June. S. Eu., W. Asia. Var. juglandifolia, Tenore (var. latifolia, Dipp. F. rotundifolia, Hort.). Lfts. ovate or broadly ovate-oblong. Var. rotundifolia, Tenore (F. rotundifolia, Lam.). Low tree: lfts. roundish-elliptic to roundish-obovate. Var. angustifolia, Tenore (F. theophrastii, Hort., partly). Lfts. lanceolate. CH The above text is from the Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture. It may be out of date, but still contains valuable and interesting information which can be incorporated into the remainder of the article. Click on "Collapse" in the header to hide this text.

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Gallery

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  Foliage and immature fruit

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  Tree in early autumn colours

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  Flowers

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  Fruit

References

• Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture, by L. H. Bailey, MacMillan Co., 1963

External links

• w:Fraxinus ornus. Some of the material on this page may be from Wikipedia, under the Creative Commons license.
• Fraxinus ornus QR Code (Size 50, 100, 200, 500)