ALTHOUGH many of us associate the oak with the ash, possibly regarding them as two of our most beloved trees, it is the oak which tends to receive most of the praise and glory.

I am sure this is to do with its role in building the warships of our past and providing wonderful old beams in ancient houses and castles.

Forests of oak - including Royal forests - were not uncommon and even today this king of trees is regarded as a symbol of our nation's strength and durability.

However, we should not overlook the more graceful lines of the common ash. The beauty of this tree, both with and without its foliage,

has earned it the name of Venus of the Woods (not to be confused with the Lady of the Woods, a name given to the silver birch).

I was reminded of the splendours of the ash during this morning's countryside walk for my route contained several wonderful examples.

Older specimens have flourished along the road verges as well as in some nearby fields while several younger ones are now making their presence known in the hedgerows.

These youngsters have avoided the severe cutting of hedges and now form useful and interesting additions to the rural scenery. At this time of year, their outlines are bare but highly distinctive, their smooth greyish-green bark tipped with pointed dots of black being one of their best-known points of identification.

The older trees tends to develop fissures on their trunks but the younger ones boast beautifully smooth bark while those pointed black objects are their leaf buds.

Before the leaves appear, however, the ash will produce male and female flowers, on the same tree but on different twigs, and when seen from a distance these can give the tree a purplish tinge in that period before the leaves open. And then, of course, the oak creeps back into the picture for most of will wonder whether the oak or the ash will be the first into leaf.

There are times, however, when an ash produces no female flowers which means, of course, there will be no seeds that year and furthermore, the seeds will not germinate until the second spring after being sown.

Whilst most of us appreciate the range of uses to which we put the timber provided by the oak, we should not overlook the merits of the ash.

Its wood is very light coloured with a beautiful grain, but its chief asset is its strength.

Although the timber looks dainty and graceful, which suggests its use in the manufacture of dainty and graceful objects, it is in fact among our toughest of woods whilst also being one of the most pliable. It is said that wood taken from young ash trees will bear a greater strain than the wood of any other European tree of equal thickness.

It is these qualities which have led ash wood to be used in the manufacture of objects like oars, skis, tennis rackets and hockey sticks, while the tall straight and slender shoots of the young trees are ideal for the handles of tools like hammers and axes, or even to make walking sticks and shepherds' crooks.

Although stick makers tend to use the hazel for the latter, the ash is a popular alternative; herdsmen of the past believed a stick made from ash protected their cattle against witchcraft.

The leaves of the ash are interesting in themselves; they are huge and comprise anything between nine and thirteen leaflets, with an individual leaflet being capable of reaching up to three inches (8cm) in length. This means that each full leaf is very heavy which helps to explain the strength of each twig which bears it.

In many cases, these leaves tend to arrive late in the year, but they are also prone to fall early.

The flowers mature into those curious seeds which we often call keys; they grow in bunches but each seed is at one end of the key whilst the remainder is a membrane about two inches long and bearing a slight twist. When the ripe seed falls from the tree, it will spin in the air like a propellor to be carried off by the wind, and it will reach the ground seed first. Some people call these "spinners" but the correct name for the seed is samara; that name also applies to the seeds of the sycamore.

With the ash being such an important part of our landscape over the centuries, it is not surprising it has attracted a wealth of folklore. The Norsemen considered it sacred, and in their mythology Odin, the most important of their gods, carved the first man out of the wood of the ash. He was called Askr; his companion was a female made from the alder.

Here in England, it was thought that burning ash logs would drive away evil spirits and so they were popular in household fires whilst one belief was that a sick child could be cured by passing him or her through a cleft in an ash tree. A young ash was split, the child was passed through the gap and the tree was then bound tightly so the cleft would heal. As it did so, so the child would grow healthy. And finally, ash logs are wonderful for domestic fires - they will even burn when green.

Updated: 11:11 Wednesday, February 05, 2003