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The "Arage-aodamo" (Fraxinus lanuginosa) belongs to Oleaceae (the Olive family). It is a tall deciduous tree that is distributed in various parts of Japan, as well as in the southern Kuril Islands and the Korean Peninsula. It grows in mountainous areas and reaches a height of 5 to 15 m. The bark is grayish brown to dark gray with longitudinal creases. The leaves are oddly pinnate compound, with one to three pairs of leaflets. The leaf surface is hairless, with coarse hairs on the underside veins and petiole. From April to May, the tree produces panicles of white flowers at the tips of the previous year's branches or in the axils of the leaves. The fruit is an oblanceolate samara. The Japanese name "aodamo" (blue damo) comes from the fact that when the branches are cut and dipped in water, the water turns blue. It is also known as "ke-aodamo". The wood is of good quality and is used for baseball bats and walking sticks.
In Korean, it is "teol-mul-pu-re-na-mu" (털물푸레나무). This is a compound word formed from "hair" (toel: 털) and "ash" (mul-pu-re-na-mu: 물푸레나무). "mul" (믈) means "water", and "pu-reu-da" (프르다) means "blue", and the name derives from the fact that the water turns blue when a branch is dipped into it. For this reason, "ash" is also called "su-cheong-mok" (水青木: 수청목).
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