98 BEA UTIES OF BBITISH TBEES. [Dec, 



BEAUTIES OF BBITISU TBEES. 



^OPLAPtS. — As we liave previously seen ' Jouknal of Foeestry,' 

 vol. v., p. 854), there are five common members of the genus 

 Bopulus : the Abele (ib., p. G99), the Aspen, the Grey, the 

 Black, and the Lombardy Poplars. Of the two former of these we 

 liave spoken before, so that we have now to deal first with the Grey 

 Poplar (P. ccmescens), a close ally of the Abele, and, like it, belonging 

 to the section Leuce, the first of the two into which the genus is 

 divided. Like the whole of the AVillow family, the Grey Poplar is a 

 tree with alternate leaves, furnished with stipules, and having its 

 flowers clustered into catkins, made up of scaly ' bracts,' some trees 

 bearing only staminate, or male, and others only pistillate, or female, 

 ones. As, too, in all the order, there is no true calyx or corolla to the 

 flowers, but in all Poplars their place is taken by a little one-sided 

 cup or ' disk,' springing from the base of the scale or ' bract,' 

 between it and the axis of the catkin, i.e., in what is termed the 

 'axil' of the scale. As, too, in all Poplars, these scales are slashed 

 into several lobes, and the catkins, made up of them with the flowers 

 in their axils, are drooping and generally make their appearance 

 before the broad deltoid leaves. The Grey Poplar is, perhaps, seldom 

 so large a tree as the Abele, though its timber is said to be of better 

 quality. It grows sixty or seventy feet high, with a smooth, dull 

 grey bark, spreading branches drooping gracefully in old trees, and 

 abundant suckers. The Poplars form one of the exceptions to the 

 rule — often stated without qualification in botanical text-books — that 

 roots do not produce leaves or leafy shoots. This characteristic is 

 most obvious when one of these trees has been felled ; for then all 

 the vitality that before spread from the roots into the main stem is 

 diverted into the far-reaching lateral roots, and a small forest of 

 suckers spring up, often many ^^ards from the parent tree. These are 

 true root-suckers and not merely ascending subterranean branches, 

 like those of the Eose. In Poplars the leaves on these suckers are 

 often different in form from those on the branches of the tree : thus, 

 in this species, the former are more angular and toothed, whilst the 

 latter are roundly heart-shaped and generally hoary on their under 

 surfaces. It is not until the end of April, or even well into ]May, 

 however, that their leaves are fully expanded ; so that not till then 

 can we speak of 



I ' Blasts that blow the Vo\Aav white,' 



as these hoary leaves glint in the rays of the spring sun ; and at an 



