154 
SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 
SALICACEZ. 
Populus alba, and Populus tremula,’ and the curiously heterophyllous African and Asiatic Populus 
tries of western Asia, and may have been introduced into Europe 
by the Arabs or by some European traveler in the Orient, as it is 
not mentioned by Pliny and other Roman agricultural writers. 
(See Loudon, Arb. Brit. iii. 1660. — Griffith, Il. i. 344. — Brandis, 
Forest Fl. Brit. Ind. 1194.) Manetti, however (Gard. Mag. n. ser. 
ii. 569), and K. Koch (Dendr. ii. pt. ii. 490), considered it indige- 
nous in Lombardy. 
The fastigiate Poplar is cultivated in the valleys of the north- 
western Himalayas, especially in Cashmere, where it sometimes 
attains the height of a hundred feet, and up to elevations of twelve 
thousand five hundred feet in western Thibet. The date of its in- 
troduction into Europe is unknown, but, according to Loudon, it was 
not planted in Tuscany until 1805, a fact which confirms his belief 
that it was not indigenous in Italy. In 1745 a French engineer offi- 
cer sent from Italy five cuttings to the director of the work on the 
canal at Montargis, along the banks of which it was first planted in 
France. (See Pelée de Saint-Maurice, L’ Art de Cultiver les Peupliers 
d’Italie.) According to Aiton (Hort. Kew. iii. 406) it was first intro- 
duced into England about 1758 by the Earl of Rochford, British 
ambassador at Turin. It was brought to the United States in 1784 
by Mr. William Hamilton, who introduced many foreign plants into 
his garden at Woodlands, near Philadelphia, which was the richest 
and most famous in America at the end of the last century (see 
Darlington, Memorials of Bartram and Marshall, 577) ; and in 1797, 
when Mr. John Kenrick established a nursery in Newton, Massa- 
chusetts, he devoted two acres to its cultivation, as the Lombardy 
Poplar was the only ornamental tree for which there was then any 
active demand in this country. (See Hist. Mass. Hort. Soc. 33.) It 
has since been planted all over the continent from the valley of the 
St. Lawrence River to Mexico ; and the fact that it does not suffer 
from the cold of the Canadian winter indicates that this tree origi- 
nated in a climate much more severe than that of northern Italy. 
The wood of the Lombardy Poplar is considered less valuable 
than that of Populus nigra, although it is occasionally employed in 
southern Europe for packing-cases and small articles of domestic 
use. 
The Lombardy Poplar has been more generally planted on the 
borders of highways in central and southern Europe than any other 
tree. No other can send up so rapidly a tall slender shaft, and to 
break « low or monotonous sky-line it is invaluable; but used 
as it has been in all sorts of situations, without regard to its sur- 
roundings, and in long formal avenues, it has done more perhaps 
than any other tree to disfigure the landscape in many parts of 
France and Germany. 
In the United States the Lombardy Poplar is now a short-lived 
tree. Insects boring into the trunk and branches often kill it ; and 
as it is also affected by fungal diseases here and in Europe, it is 
now much less generally planted than it was a century ago. 
1 Linneus, Spec. 1034 (1753). — Desfontaines, Fl. Atlant. ii. 
368. — Willdenow, Spec. iv. pt. ii. 802.— De Candolle, Lamarck 
Fl. Frane. ed. 3, iii. 298. — Nouveau Duhamel, ii. 181, t. 52. — Smith 
& Sowerby, English Bot. xxiii. t. 1618. —Guimpel, Willdenow & 
Hayne, Abbild. Deutsche Holz. 265, t. 202.— Spach, Ann. Sci. Nat. 
sér. 2, xv. 29 (Revisio Populorum) ; Hist. Vég. x. 379. — Reichen- 
bach, Icon. Fl. German. xi. 29, t. 614.—Hartig, Forst. Culturpfl. 
Deutschl. 433, t. 32.— Willkomm & Lange, Prodr. Fl. Hispan. i. 
233.— Parlatore, Fl. Ital. iv. 280. — Wesmael, De Candolle Prodr. 
xvi. pt. ii. 324; Mém. Soc. Sci. Hainaut, sér. 3, iii. 225, t. 1, 2 
(Monogr. Pop.).— Boissier, Fl. Orient. iv. 1193.— Hooker f. Fi. 
Brit. Ind. v. 638. 
Populus major, Miller, Dict. ed. 8, No. 4 (1768). 
Populus nivea, Willdenow, Berl. Baumz. 227 (1796). 
The Abele or White Poplar, as Populus alba is usually called, is 
a tree sometimes nearly a hundred feet in height, with a trunk 
three or four feet in diameter, light yellow-gray or ash-colored 
bark, except at the base of old stems, where the bark is dark and 
deeply furrowed, and young branches, buds, and petioles covered, 
like the under surface of the orbicular or broadly ovate leaves, 
with thick hoary tomentum. It inhabits the borders of streams 
and open moist woods, spreading rapidly by long vigorous stolonif- 
erous roots, and is distributed from eastern and southern England 
all over central and southern Europe to northern Africa, western 
Siberia, Syria, Asia Minor, and the foothills of the northwestern 
Himalayas. It has been largely planted in Europe, western Asia, 
and eastern America, and in the New World has become sparingly 
naturalized from the valley of the lower St. Lawrence River to 
northern Alabama. 
Several varieties of Populus alba are cultivated, the most distinct 
being a tree with fastigiate branches (Populus alba, var. Bolleana, 
Masters, Gard. Chron. u. ser. xviii. 556, f. 96 [1882]. Populus 
Bolleana, Lauche, Deutsche Garten, 1878, 500 ; Deutsche Dendr. ed. 2, 
315. Populus alba, B pyramidalis, Dippel, Handb. Laubholzk. ii. 191 
[1892]) sent by General Korolkow from Tashkend in Turkestan 
to Berlin in 1875, and now a common inhabitant of gardens in the 
eastern United States and Europe. 
The Gray Poplar, a larger tree with smaller less deeply lobed 
and darker leaves, inhabits the same region as the White Poplar 
and is equally abundant, and by many authors has been considered 
a true species (Populus canescens, Smith, Fl. Brit. 111. 1080 [1804]. — 
Willdenow, J. c.— De Candolle, /. c.—Guimpel, Willdenow & 
Hayne, J. c. 262, t. 201. — Reichenbach, J. c. 30, t. 617.— Spach, 
Ann. Sci. Nat. 1. c.; Hist. Vég. 1. c. 381.— Willkomm & Lange, 
l. c. — Parlatore, 1. c. 282. — Dippel, /. c. ii. 192). 
By other authors the Gray Poplar is considered a hybrid between 
Populus alba and Populus tremula (Populus hybrida, Marschall von 
Bieberstein, Fl. Taur.-Cauc. ii. 423 [1808]. — Wesmael, De Can- 
dolle Prodr. l. c. 3253; Mém. Soc. Sci. Hainaut, 1. c. 228, t. 18, f. 1. 
Populus albo-tremula, Krause, Jahrb. Schles. Gesell. 1848, 130. 
Populus alba x tremula, b canescens, Koehne, Deutsche Dendr. 79 
[1893]) ; and it has also been regarded as merely « variety of 
the Abele (Populus alba, 8, Lamarck, Fl. Frane. ii. 235 [1778]. — 
Bentham, Jil. Handb. Brit. Fl. ii. 769). 
2 Linneus, 1. c. (1753). — Willdenow, J. c. 803. — De Candolle, 
I. c. 299.— Smith & Sowerby, J. c. t. 1909. — Guimpel, Willde- 
now & Hayne, J. c. 266, t. 203. — Spach, Ann. Sci. Nat. 1. c. 29 ; 
Hist. Vég. 1. c. 382, t. 152. — Ledebour, FV. Ross. iii. 627. — Reich- 
enbach, /. c. t. 618. — Hartig, J. c. 434, t. 34. — Turczaninow, Fl. Bai- 
calensi-Dahurica, ii. 125. — Maximowicz, Mém. Sav. Etr. Acad. Sci. 
St. Pétersbourg, ix. 245 (Prim. Fl. Amur.); Bull. Soc. Nat. Mosc. liv. 
pt. i. 49.— Regel, Mém. Acad. Sci. St. Pétersbourg, sér. 7, iv. 132 
(Tent. Fl. Ussur.). — Willkomm & Lange, 1. c.— Parlatore, 1. c.— 
Wesmael, De Candolle Prodr. |. c.; Mém. Soc. Sci. Hainaut, l. c. 
229, t. 18, f. 2, 3,4. — Fr. Schmidt, Mém. Acad. Sci. St. Pétersbourg, 
sér. 7, xil. 174 (Fl. Sachalinensis). — Franchet & Savatier, Enum. 
Pl. Jap. i. 463. — Boissier, J. c.— Franchet, Nouv. Arch. Mus. sér. 
2, v. 284 (Pl. David. i.).— Herder, Act. Hort. Petrop. xi. 460 (PI. 
Radd.).—Miyabe, Mem. Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist. iv. 260 (Fl. Kurile 
Islands). 
? Populus Greca, Aiton, Hort. Kew. iii. 407 (1789). — Willde- 
now, J. c. 
