AMENTIFER^. 199 



drooping and 4 to 6 indies long in fruit : stigmas very tliick, uneven, 

 spreading-reflexed. Capsules roundish-ovoid, distant, stalked. The 

 scales of tlie buds are yellowish, shining, and viscous, but the outer 

 scales of the floAver-buds are sometimes faintly pubescent, at other times 

 quite glabrous, like those of the leaf-buds. The brandies, petioles, and 

 even the lamina of the leaves, have at first a few hairs on them, but 

 very soon become quite glabrous. 



Black Poplar, 



Frencli, Feuplicr noir. German, 8cJni'ar'/.pa/pi)el. 



Till about the beginning of the present century, the black poplar was most exten- 

 sively introduced into British plantations, but recently it has been superseded by 

 other varieties. The wood of this species is applicable to all the uses of the white 

 poplar. Its most general ixse on the Continent is for packing-cases, more especially 

 for wine-cases. The wood is yellow, soft, and fibrous, and splits more readily than 

 the wood of other sj^ecies. It never splinters, and, according to Evelyn, is incom- 

 parable for making trays, bowls, and other turners' ware. It is used for making 

 clogs, and for the soles, as well as the heels, of shoes. It is employed by the cartwright, 

 and Vitruvius reckons it among the building timbers. Planted thick, and cut down 

 for rafters, poles, and rails, few trees make a quicker return. It forms but indifferent 

 fuel, being in this respect greatly inferior to birch. In Russia the bark is used for 

 preparing morocco leather, and when pulverised it is eaten by sheep. In Britain it 

 is consumed like the oak for tanning leather. The bark of the old trunk being very 

 thick, light, and corky, is used by fishermen to support their nets, and, it is said, is 

 also substituted for cork in bottles. The buds, macerated in boiling water, and 

 afterwards bruised in a mortar and pressed, yield a fat substance wbich bui-us like 

 wax, and exhales a fine odour. The balsamic sap with which the buds are covered, 

 forms the basis of what Gerard calls "that profitable ointment unguentum populeum, 

 which is used as a soothing remedy against nervous diseases and bemeroides." He 

 also says, " The leaves and young buds do assuage the paine of the gout in the hands 

 or feet, being made into an ointment with May butter. It is good against all inflam- 

 mations, bruises, squats, falls, and such like." 



The young shoots of the black poplar may be used as a substitute for those of the 

 willow in basket-making. The cottony substance wbicb surrounds the seeds has 

 been used in Germany and France as wadding, and it has also been manufactured 

 into cloth hats and paper ; but the expense of collecting it, and the want of length 

 and elasticity in the fibre prevented the success of th.e experiment. 



There is an old fable related by Ovid, that when Phaeton, by his heedless diiving 

 of the chariot of the Sun, set half the Avorld on fire, he was hurled therefrom by 

 Jupiter into the Po, where he was drowned, and his sisters, the Heliades, wandering 

 on the banks of the river, were changed into trees, but the poets do not agi'ee as to 

 whether they were poplars or alders. The evidence in favour of the poplar consists 

 in there being abundance of black poplars on the banks of the Po ; in the poplar, in 

 common with other aquatic trees, being so surcharged with moisture as to have it 

 exude through the pores of the leaves, which may be literally said to weep ; and in 

 there being no trees on which the sun shines more brightly than on the black poplar, 

 thus still showing gleams of parental affection to the only memorial left of the un- 

 happy son whom his fondness had contributed to destroy. 



