Ash
Ash names 2 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below. 1 of them is described by more than one encyclopedia.
Ash an exceedingly useful and handsome tree of the north temperate zone
Described by 2 of the 6 encyclopedias.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
an exceedingly useful and handsome tree of the north temperate zone. There are about fifty species. The ashes are fine shade and ornamental trees. The English ash and the white ash of America yield valuable timber, much used for tool handles, wagon tongues, inside finish of houses, furniture, splint baskets, cars, and all other purposes for which a light, straight-grained, moderately tough wood is desired. We have a white ash, a black ash, a red ash, a blue ash, a water ash, a green ash, and several others which it is sometimes almost impossible to tell apart. In the south of Europe, especially in Italy, grows the manna, or flowering ash. From it a white substance called manna is obtained by cutting the bark. Sometimes this substance drops from the leaves without any artificial stimulus. In warm countries the common ash also is said to produce a whitish substance like manna. Cultivated varieties of ash are: the weeping ash, the branches of which bend almost to the ground; the curled-leaved ash, and the entire-leaved ash, with many of the leaves simple, instead of compound as is usual. The flowers of the ash appear in early spring before the leaves. The seed of the ash is furnished with a wing that causes it to whirl to a distance in falling. The so-called " mountain ash " with red berries is not an ash at all, but belongs to the pear tribe.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a genus of deciduous trees belonging to the natural order oleaceæ, having imperfe flowers and a seed vessel prolonged into a thin wing at the apex (called a samara). There are a good many species, chiefly indigenous to Europe and North America. The common ash (F. excelsior), indigenous to Great Britain, has a smooth bark, and grows tall and rather slender. The flowers are produced in loose spikes from the sides of the branches, and are succeeded by flat seeds which ripen in autumn. It is one of the most useful of British trees on account of the excellence of its hard, tough wood and the rapidity of its growth. There are many varieties of it, as the weeping ash, the curled-leaved ash, the entire-leaved ash, etc. The flowering or manna ash (F. ornus), by some placed in a distinct genus (ornus), is a native of the S. of Europe and Palestine. It yields the substance called manna, which is obtained by making incisions in the bark, when the juice exudes and hardens. Among American species are the white ash (F. americana), with lighter bark and leaves; the red or black ash (F. pubescens), with a brown bark; the black ash, (F. sambucifolia), the blue ash, the green ash, etc. They are all valuable trees. The mountain ash, or rowan, belongs to a different order.
Ash or ASHES, the incombustible residue of organic bodies (animal
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
or ASHES, the incombustible residue of organic bodies (animal or vegetable) remaining after combustion. As a commercial term, the word generally means the ashes of vegetable substances, from which are extracted the alkaline matters called potash, pearlash, kelp, barilla, etc.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
When Aiton's called the ash "exceedingly useful" in 1910 and Collier's judged the common ash "one of the most useful of British trees" in 1921, no one imagined the genus itself could be at risk. The emerald ash borer, an Asian beetle detected near Detroit in 2002, has since killed hundreds of millions of North American ash trees, and the IUCN in 2017 listed five species, including the white ash so praised above, as critically endangered; in Europe the fungal disease ash dieback, confirmed in Britain in 2012, is expected to kill a large share of the common ash. Baseball bats, long made of white ash, are now more often maple. Collier's second entry, on ashes as the commercial source of potash and pearlash, describes a trade that industrial mining of potash salts had already displaced by the time it was printed.
Written for this edition, 2026.