A field-to-nursery notebook: foraging native seeds & cuttings across North Carolina, identifying them, and working out how to grow them for a NC Piedmont native-plant nursery.
Fraxinus americana · Oleaceae
A vanishing upland canopy tree — collect samaras from surviving females now, while the emerald ash borer is still ahead of you.
Community photos of Fraxinus americana — fix this search image in your eye before the hike (leaf, flower/bract, ripe fruit, bark, whole-plant habit).
A common overstory tree throughout the NC Piedmont including Person County; near-ubiquitous historically but now dying back rapidly under EAB
Best bet: Ash has warm-then-cold double dormancy. Clean off wings, float out empties, then warm-moist stratify ~30–60 days at 20–30°C (68–86°F) followed by cold-moist stratify 60–90 days at 1–5°C (34–41°F) in damp sand/perlite; sow spring for epigeal emergence (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.
Piedmont native, tolerant of heavy clay, heat, and zone 7b/8a — but emerald ash borer is now 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/soil treatment is feasible, and treat individuals as at-risk rather than permanent canopy.
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. Build your search image around 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–October, look for drooping clusters of tan, paddle-shaped samaras and for crowns that flush yellow-to-maroon-purple late in fall, after neighbors have dropped. The fastest flag now, sadly, is dieback: thinning canopies, epicormic sprouts along the trunk, and D-shaped exit holes mark EAB-hit trees — scout the healthiest survivors.
White ash is dioecious — only female trees bear samaras — so scout for fruiting females in late summer and mark them before leaf-drop. Phenology gotcha: ash ripens seed in fall (unlike red maple and elm, which shed in spring), so don't expect spring samaras; collect Sep–Oct once wings turn tan-brown and a cut seed shows a whitish endosperm filling the pericarp. Empty, aborted samaras are common — cut-test a handful and float off the flats. De-wing, then break the seed's double dormancy: ~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 ~30–55% germination (lab mean ~54%) with some carryover to a second spring. Easiest route: fall-sow cleaned seed outdoors and let winter do the cold cycle. This is genuine conservation seed-banking — pair 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, healthy seed-bearers are the ones worth returning to.