Fraxinus carolinianaMill.

Carolina ash

WFO wfo-0000832374 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Fraxinus caroliniana, photographed by Ryan Watson
fig. a Ryan Watson, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-03-27 / obs. 184939364
Fraxinus caroliniana, photographed by Claire Herzog
fig. b Claire Herzog, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 74855452
Fraxinus caroliniana, photographed by Claire Herzog
fig. c Claire Herzog, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 72372475
Fraxinus caroliniana, photographed by Michelle Sevcovas
fig. d Michelle Sevcovas, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 63799728
Fraxinus caroliniana, photographed by Jenn (McPhee) Dyson
fig. e Jenn (McPhee) Dyson, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 13670832
Fraxinus caroliniana, photographed by Michelle Sevcovas
fig. f Michelle Sevcovas, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 63369887
Fraxinus caroliniana, photographed by Claire Herzog
fig. g Claire Herzog, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 188083160
Fraxinus caroliniana, photographed by Daniel Patterson
fig. h Daniel Patterson, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 185815294

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Native range 11 botanical countries

Regions where Fraxinus caroliniana is native: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, Cuba AlabamaArkansasFloridaGeorgiaLouisianaMississippiNorth CarolinaSouth CarolinaTexasVirginiaCuba
Native distribution of Fraxinus caroliniana, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Alabama ALA NORTHERN AMERICA
Arkansas ARK
Florida FLA
Georgia GEO
Louisiana LOU
Mississippi MSI
North Carolina NCA
South Carolina SCA
Texas TEX
Virginia VRG
Cuba CUB SOUTHERN AMERICA

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Where it actually grows measured, from 583 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 2.9 °C 12.1 °C 15.6 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 30.1 °C 31.5 °C 32.3 °C
Annual rainfall 1,267 mm 1,412 mm 1,741 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 127 mm 182 mm 317 mm

It is found where winters are cool but frost is light or absent. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 583 research-grade observations of Fraxinus caroliniana that carry a coordinate, and this is the range those places actually span. The 5th and 95th percentiles are used rather than the minimum and maximum, because a single cultivated specimen in a heated conservatory should not widen a tropical plant's range to the Arctic.

This is not a hardiness zone. A USDA zone is the average annual extreme minimum temperature. The figure above is the mean daily minimum of the coldest month, which is a different quantity and is typically far warmer. Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.

Also published as 45 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Calycomelia caroliniana (Mill.) Kostel.
  • Calycomelia caroliniana (Mill.) Kostel.
  • Calycomelia pallida (Bosc) Kostel.
  • Calycomelia platycarpa (Michx.) Kostel.
  • Fraxinus americana var. caroliniana (Mill.) D.J.Browne
  • Fraxinus americana var. triptera (Nutt.) D.J.Browne
  • Fraxinus caroliniana f. caroliniana
  • Fraxinus caroliniana f. hypomalaca Fernald
  • Fraxinus caroliniana f. lasiophylla Fernald & B.G.Schub.
  • Fraxinus caroliniana f. pubescens (M.A.Curtis) Fernald & B.G.Schub.
  • Fraxinus caroliniana subsp. cubensis (Griseb.) Borhidi
  • Fraxinus caroliniana var. caroliniana
  • Fraxinus caroliniana var. cubensis (Griseb.) Lingelsh.
  • Fraxinus caroliniana var. oblaceolata (M.A.Curtis) Fernald & B.G.Schub.
  • Fraxinus caroliniana var. pauciflora (Nutt.) D.B.Ward
  • Fraxinus caroliniana var. platycarpa (Michx.) Lingelsh.
  • Fraxinus caroliniana var. pubescens (M.A.Curtis) Fernald
  • Fraxinus cordata Raf.
  • Fraxinus cubensis Griseb.
  • Fraxinus curvidens Hoffmanns.
  • Fraxinus floridana (Wenz.) Sarg.
  • Fraxinus nigra subsp. caroliniana (Mill.) Wesm.
  • Fraxinus nigrescens Buckley
  • Fraxinus nuttallii Buckley

and 21 more.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.