Plants of South Eastern New South Wales
Fraxinus angustifolia subsp. angustifolia
Common name
Desert Ash
Family
Oleaceae
Where found
Woodland, grassy areas, roadsides, disturbed sites, stream banks, and wetlands. Sydney area, Canberra, and round Wagga Wagga. Occasionally elsewhere.
Notes
Introduced deciduous tree to 20 m or more high. Bark on the trunk rough, fissured with age. Younger stems greenish-brown or yellowish, hairless, with lenticels. Winter buds at the tips of the branches dark brown. Leaves opposite each other or ocasionally in whorls of 3, 14–25 cm long; compound, with 5–13 leaflets 3–8 cm long, 7–20 mm wide, coarsely toothed with gland-tipped points, but smooth near the base, tips pointed, surfaces hairless, upper surface bright green and shiny, lower side paler and duller. Leaves turn yellowish before falling in autumn. Flower clusters of only male flowers, only bisexual flowers, or a mixture of male and bisexual flowers. All trees with at least some male and some bisexual flowers. Flowers small, with 0 petals, 0 sepals, in many-flowered branched clusters. Flowers appearing before the leaves, in late winter to early spring. Immature 'seeds' greenish, sometimes tinged pink or red, turning pale brown as they mature. 'Seeds' with one wing, 3-5 cm long overall, narrowly oval in shape and often slightly twisted.
PlantNET description: http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=in&name=Fraxinus~angustifolia (accessed 17 January, 2021)
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