# Ash leaf (Fraxinus excelsior) *Common ash, weeping ash; Folkard’s ‘Venus of the forest’ and ‘husbandman’s tree’; *Fraxinus excelsior* L., with the narrow-leaved *Fraxinus angustifolia* Vahl; in pharmacy *Fraxini folium** **Known today as.** *Fraxinus excelsior*, a tall tree of the olive family Oleaceae, with light-grey bark and large compound leaves of four to eight pairs of lance-shaped, sharply toothed leaflets tipped by a single one. Its flowers, without petals or sepals, open before the leaves, and its winged seeds, the ‘keys,’ hang in great clusters until the next spring. Grieve calls its wood the toughest and most elastic of English timbers, surpassing every European tree in that quality. The drug is the dried leaf. Kind: Plant > **Caution.** Not where a reduced fluid intake is advised, as in severe heart or kidney disease, nor under eighteen; plenty of fluid is needed for the urinary use. Joint pain with swelling, redness, or fever should be examined by a doctor, as should fever, painful urination, spasms, or blood in the urine. ## What was it used for? A leaf for the joints and the kidneys. Grieve gives the leaves as diuretic, diaphoretic, and purgative, used in her day for their laxative action “especially in the treatment of gouty and rheumatic complaints, proving a useful substitute for Senna, having a less griping effect.” Culpeper found the distilled water of the leaves, taken fasting each morning, good for dropsy and “to abate the greatness of those that are too gross or fat,” and their decoction in white wine good to break the stone and cure jaundice. ## What does modern science say? The European Medicines Agency’s herbal committee accepts the leaf of either ash as a traditional herbal medicine, “exclusively based upon long-standing use,” for the relief of minor joint pain and to increase the amount of urine to flush the urinary tract in minor urinary complaints (monograph of 2012). Its assessment report finds flavonoids, about 1.4 per cent, rutin among them, and triterpenes including ursolic acid, and found no relevant clinical research: the effectiveness of the traditional uses “is not documented,” though some seemed plausible from the leaf’s chemistry. ## Pharmacognosy and toxicology - **rutin**: among the flavonoids, about 1.4 per cent of the leaf - **ursolic acid**: among the triterpenes **Mechanism.** Not established in the sources read for this entry. **Standing.** European Union herbal monograph (2012): traditional use, “exclusively based upon long-standing use,” for minor joint pain and to flush the urinary tract in minor urinary complaints. ## What lore surrounds it? The ash, Folkard writes, was sacred to the Greeks, Romans, and Scandinavians, and in the Edda the mystic ash Yggdrasill shaded the holiest seat of the gods; by old Norse tradition man was first formed from its wood. Chiron brought an ash branch to the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, from which was made the lance that became the spear of Achilles. Grieve records the charm for warts: prick each wart with a new pin thrust into the tree, leave the pins there, and say “Ashen tree, ashen tree, Pray buy these warts of me.” A ruptured child passed through a split sapling was supposed to be cured. ## What did the older authorities say? **Culpeper, *The Complete Herbal* (1653).** Governed by the Sun. Of all the virtues claimed for the ash he excepted only one, that its tops and leaves are good against the bites of serpents and vipers, a belief he traced to Gerard or Pliny, who held that an adder ringed with ash leaves “will sooner run through the fire than through the leaves: The contrary to which is the truth, as both my eyes are witnesses.” ## Sources - Grieve, M. *A Modern Herbal*, “Ash.” As published on botanical.com. - Culpeper, N. *The Complete Herbal*, “Ash Tree.” Project Gutenberg, 49513. - Folkard, R. (1884). *Plant Lore, Legends, and Lyrics*, “Ash.” Project Gutenberg, 44638. - European Medicines Agency, Committee on Herbal Medicinal Products. *European Union herbal monograph on Fraxini folium (Ash Leaf)*. EMA/HMPC/239271/2011, 27 March 2012. - European Medicines Agency, Committee on Herbal Medicinal Products. *Assessment report on Fraxini folium*. EMA/HMPC/239269/2011, 27 March 2012. - European Medicines Agency, Committee on Herbal Medicinal Products. *European Union herbal monograph on Fraxini folium (Ash Leaf)*. EMA/HMPC/239271/2011, 27 March 2012. - European Medicines Agency, Committee on Herbal Medicinal Products. *Assessment report on Fraxini folium*. EMA/HMPC/239269/2011, 27 March 2012. --- *Ash leaf.* In *Materia Medica*, edited by B. C. P. Statema. Version 1, revised 2026-10-17. The Thinking Press. https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/ash-leaf Historical description, not medical advice.