224 TYPES OF BRITISH PLANTS 
“pollarded,” that is, have had the top shoots cut off 
from year to year, in order that they may crown 
their tops with a supply of osiers. But if they are 
allowed to grow naturally they make fine timber very 
rapidly, and are a great ornament to the landscape. 
With their sweeping branches, furrowed bark, and long 
narrow leaves of silvery grey, they deserve a fuller 
opportunity than is usually extended to them. 
We have four poplars that are fairly common in 
England, the Black Poplar, the White Poplar, the 
Lombardy. Poplar, and the Aspen. General opinion 
has specially applied the name to the rather melancholy 
“Lombardy,” the tall spires of which are perhaps the 
first trees which one clearly identifies by name; but this 
is only a variety of the English Black, which has taken 
to pushing out all its branches erect. Dismal as a long 
avenue of these may, and does, look, there is no doubt 
that, judiciously planted amongst other trees, the poplar 
gives a pleasant variety. 
The leaves of the black poplar are quite smooth on 
both sides, slightly notched at the edge, and more or 
less triangular, the angles at the base being somewhat 
rounded off. The White Poplar, on the other hand, is 
deeply notched, and can be recognised at once by a grey 
felty substance which covers the whole of the lower 
surface, The Aspen leaf, which has a very long foot- 
stalk, is smaller and nearly round, and, like the Black 
Poplar’s, quite smooth above and below. 
An interesting fact about the poplar is that it was 
chosen by the French Revolutionists, a hundred years 
ago, as the emblematic tree of liberty, which they planted 
everywhere on all possible occasions. The reason of 
their selection seems to have been based upon a “false 
