Seeds and cuttings I collect around North Carolina, what they turned out to be, and how to grow them for a NC Piedmont native-plant nursery.
Fraxinus americana · Oleaceae
An upland canopy tree on its way out. Worth collecting samaras from healthy females while they're still standing.
Community photos of Fraxinus americana to study before I head out: leaf, flower or bract, ripe fruit, bark, whole plant.
A common overstory tree throughout the NC Piedmont including Person County. Near-ubiquitous historically, now dying back rapidly under EAB
Best bet: Ash has warm-then-cold double dormancy. Clean off the wings, float out the empties, then warm-moist stratify ~30–60 days at 20–30°C (68–86°F) followed by cold-moist stratification of 60–90 days at 1–5°C (34–41°F) in damp sand/perlite. Sow in spring for epigeal emergence and expect ~30–55% germination. Simplest alternative: sow cleaned seed in outdoor fall beds and let one winter do the cold cycle. Germination often carries into the second spring.
A Piedmont native, tolerant of heavy clay and heat, comfortable in zone 7b/8a. Emerald ash borer is the problem: it's under a statewide NC quarantine and kills untreated ash within 3–5 years. Grow-out here is conservation-motivated. Preserve local genetics, plant only where trunk injection or soil treatment is feasible, and treat individuals as at-risk rather than permanent canopy.
Each look-alike with the one character that settles it. Tap a photo to zoom.
Leaf scar straight-topped (D-shaped) with the bud perched above it, and the samara wing runs a third to half of the way down onto a narrower seed. White ash has a deep C-notch cradling the bud and a terminal wing that barely reaches the plump seed
A wetland and swamp species with broad, often 2–3-winged samaras. White ash is upland with a single narrow terminal wing
Also opposite and compound, but with only 3–5 coarsely toothed or lobed leaflets, green twigs, and paired double samaras rather than single-winged ones
Alternate compound leaves. White ash is strictly opposite, so twig arrangement settles it instantly
White ash is a straight-trunked canopy tree of dry-mesic upland forest, rich lower slopes, and old field edges. Drier ground than green or Carolina ash. The first thing I check is opposite branching. Only a handful of our woody plants (ashes, maples, dogwoods, viburnums) hold twigs and leaves in opposing pairs, so a compound leaf on an opposite twig is almost always ash. From a distance in September and October, look for drooping clusters of tan, paddle-shaped samaras, and for crowns that flush yellow to maroon-purple late in the fall after the neighbors have dropped. The fastest flag now, sadly, is dieback: thinning canopies, epicormic sprouts along the trunk, D-shaped exit holes. Those are EAB-hit trees. Scout for the healthiest survivors.
White ash is dioecious, so only female trees bear samaras. Scout for fruiting females in late summer and mark them before leaf-drop. Ash ripens its seed in fall, unlike red maple and elm which shed in spring, so don't go looking for spring samaras. Collect Sep–Oct once the wings turn tan-brown and a cut seed shows whitish endosperm filling the pericarp. Empty, aborted samaras are common, so cut-test a handful and float off the flats.
De-wing, then break the double dormancy: about 30–60 days warm-moist (20–30°C) followed by 60–90 days cold-moist (1–5°C) in damp sand, then sow in spring. Expect around 30–55% germination (lab mean ~54%) with some carryover to a second spring. The easiest route is to fall-sow cleaned seed outdoors and let winter handle the cold cycle. This is genuine conservation seed-banking. Pair it with the USFS/NRCS ash germplasm effort and grow out local genetics before EAB removes the seed source.
Around Roxboro and Hyco Lake in Person County, work rich slopes and stream terraces in mixed hardwood stands and along field edges. Southward, Duke Forest, Eno River State Park, and the Mayo River corridor all hold upland ash. Prioritize vigorous, full-crowned female trees. With EAB statewide, the healthy seed-bearers are the ones worth returning to.