Fraxinus excelsior L.
(Ash)

Said to be the best wood for firewood, as evidenced by the following old poem:

Beech-wood fires burn bright and clear

If the logs are kept a year;

Store your beech for Christmastide

With new-cut holly laid beside;

Chestnut’s only good, they say,

If for years ’tis stored away;

Birch and fir-wood burn too fast

Blaze too bright and do not last;

Flames from larch will shoot up high,

Dangerously the sparks will fly;

But ash-wood green and ash-wood brown

Are fit for a Queen with a golden crown.

Oaken logs, if dry and old,

Keep away the winter’s cold;

Poplar gives a bitter smoke,

Fills your eyes and makes you choke;

Elm-wood burns like churchyard mould,

E’en the very flames are cold;

It is by the Irish said;

Hawthorn bakes the sweetest bread,

Apple-wood will scent the room,

Pear-wood smells like flowers in bloom;

But ash-wood wet and ash-wood dry

A King may warm his slippers by.

Anon.