250 WOODY PLANTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



dark granite gray, moderately rugged bark. The branches, 

 when the tree grows on high and rather dry land, are small, 

 horizontal or arching upwards, with the bark more broken than 

 on other poplars, and having a speckled appearance. The 

 branchlets are spreading and pendulous, greenish gray, and soon 

 roughened by transverse cracks. They are slightly angular to- 

 wards the extremity. The recent shoots are very tough, green- 

 ish, or greenish gray, and very slightly angled by ridges running 

 down from the leaves. Buds of a moderate size, shining, but 

 with very little balsam. Leafstalk long, somewhat compressed, 

 with the upper edge sharp or roundish, with conspicuous glands 

 above, at the base of the leaf. Leaves broad ovate, nearly as wide 

 as they are long, rounded or making nearly a right angle with 

 the stalk at base, tapering rapidly to a short point, with large 

 rounded serratures ending in a callous or glandular point, looking 

 towards the end of the leaf; green and smooth on both surfaces, 

 somewhat paler beneath. Pith in the small twigs very large 

 and five-angled. 



The wood is white, soft, close-grained, resilient, not disposed 

 to splinter, and resembling apparently, in its other properties, 

 that of the other poplars. 



This is usually a slender, rather handsome tree, with a spiry, 

 but somewhat open head. 



It is found, cultivated, on the Connecticut River. In 1837, 

 I found a large tree, growing naturally by the side of a 

 stream in New Ashford, the leaves of which agree perfectly 

 with those which I gathered in Middletown, from trees which 

 Dr. Barratt pronounces to be the necklace poplar. 



The resemblance between the leaves, branches and trunk of 

 this tree, and those of the river poplar is such, that I should 

 take them to be varieties of the same species. Dr. Barratt con- 

 siders them as sufficiently distinguished by their fructification. 

 In other respects I can see no marked difference, except in the 

 smallness, and in the paleness of the under surface, of the leaves 

 of the necklace poplar. 



The tree in New Ashford, of which I have spoken, was sup- 

 posed by the inhabitants to be a Balm of Gilead. It grows by 

 the side of a small river, in a rich intervale, and measured, in 



