AMENTIFER7E. 191 



ceous on the later shoots and on the suckers. Flowers dioecious, both 

 the male and female flowers in catkins. Catkin-scales of the male catkins 

 covering 1 flower, with the floral-scales reduced to 1 or 2 glands, or 

 united into a disk or perianth ( ?) : stamens generally 2, but sometimes 

 3, 4, 5, 12, or more. Female flowers with entire or laciniated catkin- 

 scales, each scale covering 1 flower, which has 2 glands sometimes 

 combined into a cup or perianth at the base : ovary sessile or stalked, 

 1-celled or imperfectly 2-celled, with numerous ascending ovules; style 

 short, with 2 entire or 2-cleft or 2-partite (rarely 4-cleft) stigmas. 

 Fruit a capsule, opening by 2 valves containing numerous seeds clothed 

 with silky hairs. 



GENUS IX.— V O P U L U S. Tournef. 



Flowers dioBcious. Male catkins cylindrical: catkin-scales irregu- 

 larly toothed or laciniate at the apex : floral-scales united to form an 

 oblique perianth or cuplike disk: stamens 8 to 30, inserted in the disk; 

 filaments distinct. Female flowers in ovoid or cylindrical catkins: 

 catkin- scales laciniate or nearly entire : floral-scales united to form a 

 cuplike disk, surrounding the base of the ovary : ovary sessile within 

 the disk, 1-celled and many-ovuled ; style very short ; stigmas elongate, 

 spreading, but so deeply cleft as to appear 4- or 4-cleft, so as to be 

 apparently 8 in number. Fruit catkins elongated, lax, with caducous 

 bracts. Fruit a conical herbaceous capsule, opening by 2 valves, and 

 containing numerous seeds clothed with long silky white down. 



Trees, or more rarely shrubs, with the leaves broadly ovate, rhom- 

 boidal, roundish or deltoid, often lobed or deeply toothed. Catkins 

 drooping, appearing before the leaves. 



The most commonly- given derivation of this word is from j^ojndus, which, as Dr. 

 Prior says, "we might fancy to have been suggested by the jjojj-ap-ftj) of the quivering 

 leaves." There is, however, he states, a resemblance between the leaves of the sjDecies 

 of populus and that of the Indian Fictis religiosa, the name of which is pepul, " a 

 name which we can scarcely doubt is not an accidental coincidence of sound with 

 liopnJ^is, but identical with it in its origin, and brought westward into Eui'ope by the 

 early Asiatic colonists, and carried eastward into India in connection, perhaps, with 

 some religious observance." 



Section I.— LEUCE. Biihj. 



Catkins dense in fruit, their scales ciliated with long hairs. Stamens 

 usually 8 (4 to 12). Stigma with 4 to 8 slender segments, which are 

 linear, or slightly enlarged at the apex. Young branches pubescent, 

 hairy or cottony. 



