Rank Species | Higher classification Ash | |
 | ||
Similar Ash, Blue ash, Fraxinus caroliniana, Fraxinus anomala, Fraxinus latifolia | ||
Fraxinus profunda (pumpkin ash; syn. F. tomentosa Michx.) is a species of Fraxinus (ash) native to eastern North America, primarily in the United States, with a scattered distribution on the Atlantic coastal plain and interior lowland river valleys from southern Maryland northwest to Indiana, southeast to northern Florida, and southwest to southeastern Missouri to Louisiana, and also locally in the extreme south of Canada in Essex County, Ontario.
While normally a medium-sized deciduous tree reaching 12–30 m tall with a trunk up to 1 m diameter, the tree can reach 50 m tall with a 4.7 m diameter trunk. The bark is gray, thick and fissured. The winter buds are dark brown to blackish, with a velvety texture. The leaves are opposite, pinnate, with 7–9 leaflets; each leaf is 25–40 cm long, the leaflets 8–20 cm long and 5–8 cm broad, with a finely toothed margin; they are downy on the underside and along the rachis. The leaflets are stalked, with a short petiolule. The flowers are produced in panicles in spring shortly before the new leaves; they are inconspicuous purplish-green with no petals, and are wind-pollinated. The fruit is a samara; it is the largest of any North American ash species, 5–8 cm long, comprising a single seed with an elongated apical wing 9 mm broad.
Ecology
It occurs primarily in swamps. Pumpkin ash is a food plant for the larvae of several species of Lepidoptera; see List of Lepidoptera that feed on ashes. It is also seriously threatened by the invasive Asian emerald ash borer.
