Fraxinus anomala

Single-leaf ash, Single-Leaf Ash

Family: Oleaceae · Type: shrub · Native

Single-leaf ash is a California native shrub found in northern and eastern desert mountains in washes, rocky slopes, shrubland, and pinyon-juniper woodland at elevations of 1,100 to 2,400 meters. Flowering from April to May, this plant produces yellow-green flowers in compact clusters with glandular-puberulent bracts. Growing as a multi-stemmed shrub to small tree 1.5 to 5 meters tall with gray bark and distinctively 4-angled tan twigs, it develops a complex branching structure. Its leaves are uniquely simple or compound, with blades that are narrowly ovate to rounded, featuring 3 to 5 leaflets each 2 to 10 centimeters long and thick with a yellow-green coloration. The fruit is an elongated wing-like structure 13 to 24 millimeters long, broadly winged and oblong-oblanceolate in shape.

Habitat: Washes, rocky slopes, shrubland, pinyon/juniper woodland

Bloom period: Apr-May

Elevation: 1100-2400 m

Bioregions: n&ampe DMtns

California counties: San Bernardino, Inyo

Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.