372 THE POPLAR FAMILY. 



Marple Wood, and on the borders of the mosses. In gardens and 

 plantations the variety pendula is the most frequent. Fi. April, May. 

 E. B. xxxi. 2198 ; Baxter, v, 32G. 

 The birch tree must always have been i^lentiful in the district, and abso- 

 lutely wild at one time, since large quantities of ancient fragments, with the 

 silveij bark adhering, and portions of trunks, are found when tlie peat is removed, 

 during the draining of the mosses. At Camngton the fragments are particularly 

 abundant, though the stumps of the uncovered trees are not so large as those at 

 Lindow. (See " Walks and Wild-flowers," pp. 99 — lOG.) In aged trees, the bark 

 splits into deep, wide fissures, and the continuity of the white covering is broken. 

 The latter, especially in young trees, is prone to peel off transversely. By reason 

 of the extreme delicacy and gracefulness of the branches, and swaying pensile 

 twigs, which float like ringlets, the poets call the birch " the lady of the -woods." 



2. Common Aldee — [Alnus glutinosa.) 

 In wet and swampy places, on the borders of ponds, and in damp 

 doughs, everywhere, and forming, like the willow, a characteristic 

 adjunct of the water-side. It will grow, however, in dry land, and 

 even by dusty waysides, as at Didsbuiy ; but its delight is in wet. and 

 very wet land, such as the edges of running brooks, especially where 

 the water breaks out and steeps the soil. Fl. March. 



Curtis, iii. 550; E. B. xxi. 1508 (as Betula Alnus); Baxter, iii. 103. 



CXVIII.— THE POPLAR FAMILY. SalicdcecB. 



Like the birch family, this small but interesting group of trees 

 comprises no more than two genera, viz., Populus, including poplars 

 of all kinds, and Salix, which includes the willows, the sallows, and 

 the osier. Their catkins of two-valved and lanceolate capsules, dis- 

 charging abundance of little seeds covered with long white silky hairs, 

 markedly distinguish them not only from the immediately related 

 families, but from all others that have unisexual flowers. The only 

 shrub at all resembling them among the bisexual families is the 

 tamarisk (p. 164), and even here the sole point of agreement is the 

 fruit and feathery seed. The leaves of the Salicaccoe are alternate, 

 simple, and undivided, usually petiolatc, serrate, and pointed, with the 

 veins "deliquescent," or spreading irregularly, as in Fig. 195, and 

 never with parallel ribs extending from tlie midrib to the margin, as 

 happens in the oak family, and in the alder. The outline varies from 

 narrow lanceolate to round or triangular. Many of the poplars are 



