Petrologic studies of volcanic ash are commonly used to identify juvenile volcanic material and observe changes in the composition and style of volcanic eruptions. During the 2004-5 eruption of Mount St. Helens, recognition of the juvenile component in ash produced by early phreatic explosions was complicated by the presence of a substantial proportion of 1980-86 lava-dome fragments and glassy tephra, in addition to older volcanic fragments possibly derived from crater debris. In this report, we correlate groundmass textures and compositions of glass, mafic phases, and feldspar from 2004-5 ash in an attempt to identify juvenile material in early phreatic explosions and to distinguish among the various processes that generate and distribute ash. We conclude that clean glass in the ash is derived mostly from nonjuvenile sources and is not particularly useful for identifying the proportion of juvenile material in ash samples. High Li contents (>30 μg/g) in feldspars provide a useful tracer for juvenile material and suggest an increase in the proportion of the juvenile component between October 1 and October 4, 2004, before the emergence of hot dacite on the surface of the crater on October 11, 2004. The presence of Li-rich feldspar out of equilibrium (based on Liplagioclase/melt partitioning) with groundmass and bulk dacite early in the eruption also suggests vapor enrichment in the initially erupted dacite. If an excess vapor phase was, indeed, present, it may have provided a catalyst to initiate the eruption. Textural and compositional comparisons between dome fault gouge and the ash produced by rockfalls, rock avalanches, and vent explosions indicate that the fault gouge is a likely source of ash particles for both types of events. Comparison of the ash from vent explosions and rockfalls suggests that the fault gouge and new dome were initially heterogeneous, containing a mixture of conduit and crater debris and juvenile material, but became increasingly homogeneous, dominated by juvenile material, by early January 2005.