PoplarSy Aspens, and Cotton-Woods. . 613 



Cotton-woods. 



These form a characteristic group of the family, and are believed 

 to be essentially American in their origin. Many have been trans- 

 planted into European soil, and thrive as well in their adopted home 

 as though to the manor born. In their native land many of the 

 Cotton- woods attain majestic proportions, and they are not without 

 their value. The great logs were easily wrought into canoes by the 

 aborigines and early settlers. They provided food for the native 

 beavers as well as material for their subaqueous structures, and the 

 pioneers of the West often helped to sustain their live stock during 

 winter by the coarse forage furnished by the soft wood and large, 

 almost succulent buds of the branches of trees cut down for the 

 purpose. The lumber, though inferior for most purposes to the hard- 

 wood species, was, and is still, used to a considerable extent in 

 some parts of the country, and the Cotton-woods are planted more 

 numerously than any other trees in the new forests that are rapidly 

 spreading upon the borders of the great plains. These will effect the 

 double purpose of furnishing abundant supplies of fuel and timber 

 in a few years, sheltering the open country, rendering it more 

 habitable as well as more productive in cattle and crops. But, best 

 of all, they will enable the forest planter to introduce other and more 

 valuable kinds of trees for the future wants of the people that are 

 destined to cover these vast areas, that have been heretofore but 

 desert steppes so far as human habitations were concerned, and only 

 roamed over by hordes of savages, and by herds of the ruminant 

 buffalo of the plains. 



With great diffidence the determination of some of the species has 

 been reached by the writer, who gracefully bows to the magnates of 

 Botanical science ; but where even these are in doubt, who shall 

 decide ? 



There is some uncertainty as to the designations given to these 

 plants by botanists, some of whom, perhaps, had only herbarium 

 specimens, and the unsatisfactory descriptions of non-scientific though 

 intelligent travellers from which to make up their diagnosis. 



14. Po'jjulus cmgulata (Michaux), the Carolina Poplar. Michaux says 

 this species, which he first met under the name of Carolinian Poplar, 

 was found in the south of Virginia, and also on the Mississippi and 

 Missouri rivers, growing with the Cotton- wood, his P. Canadensis. He 

 describes it a,.-, a tall-growing and upright tree, which is the character 

 of the Carolina Poplar as now known. The buds are short, dark green, 

 and destitute of the viscid resin found on those of the Cotton-wood 

 proper, and on most other poplars. 



This is believed to be the tree so prevalent in Belgium, where it is 



