Fraxinus excelsior
Environmental Weed (2024)
Common names
ash
Biostatus
Exotic
Category
Vascular
Structural class
Trees & Shrubs - Dicotyledons
Flower colours
Violet/Purple
Detailed description
Large tree to about 30 m. Leaves alternate, with 9-13 leaflets on petioles to about 8 cm long. Leaflets to about 10 x 3.5 cm, lanceolate with serrate margins. The flowers are very small and purple, lack petals, and appear before the leaves with male and female flowers on separate trees. The single-winged seeds hang in dense clusters from the branches.
Similar taxa
Several species of Ash are cultivated in New Zealand. F. excelsior can be separated by the large number of leaflets, and green mid-veins.
Habitat
Terrestrial. riverflats, forest, scrub and waste places.
Conservation status
Not applicable
Detailed taxonomy
Family
Ecology
Flowering
September, October
Year naturalised
1904
Origin
Europe, W. Asia, N.Africa
Reason for introduction
Ornamental
Life cycle and dispersal
Many seeds are produced but wild plants are rare. Seed viability unknown. Dispersed by wind and people.
Other information
Etymology
fraxinus: From the Latin name for ash, possibly derived from the Greek phrasso ‘to fence’, the timber being very useful for fence making.
Environmental Weed (2024)
This plant is named in a list of 386 environmental weeds in New Zealand 2024 prepared by DOC. 759 candidate species were considered for inclusion on this new comprehensive list of environmental weeds in New Zealand. The species considered were drawn from published lists of weed species, lists of plants that must be reported or managed by law if observed, existing national and regional programmes and agreements for pest management, and species already managed by the Department of Conservation (DOC). Candidate species were then assessed to see if they were fully naturalised and whether they have more than minor impacts in natural ecosystems. Read the full report here.
NVS code
The National Vegetation Survey (NVS) Databank is a physical archive and electronic databank containing records of over 94,000 vegetation survey plots - including data from over 19,000 permanent plots. NVS maintains a standard set of species code abbreviations that correspond to standard scientific plant names from the Ngä Tipu o Aotearoa - New Zealand Plants database.
FRAEXC