SALICACEZ, 
SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 167 
POPULUS BALSAMIFERA. 
Balsam. Tacamahac. 
LEAveEs ovate-lanceolate, acute or acuminate, dark green and lustrous on the 
Populus balsamifera, Linneus, Spec. 1034 (excl. syn. 
Catesby & Gmelin) (1753). — Du Roi, Harbk. Baumz. ii. 
143. — Marshall, Arbust. Am. 107.— Moench, Baume 
Weiss. 79; Meth. 338.— Castiglioni, Viag. negli Stati 
Uniti, ii. 334 (excl. syn. Gmelin). —Schoepf, Mat. Med. 
Amer. 151.— Wangenheim, Nordam. Holz. 85, t. 28, f. 
59. — Willdenow, Berl. Bawmz. 230; Spec. iv. pt. ii. 
805; Enum. 1017.— Borkhausen, Handb. Forstbot. i. 
544. — Nouveau Duhamel, ii. 179, t. 50.— Michaux, 
Fl. Bor.-Am. ii. 244. — Persoon, Syn. ii. 624. — Desfon- 
taines, Hist. Arb. ii. 466.— Du Mont de Courset, Bot. 
Cult. ed. 2, vi. 401.— Michaux f. Hist. Ard. Am. 
iii. 306, t. 13, f. 1.—Pursh, Fl. Am. Sept. ii. 618. — 
Nuttall, Gen. ii. 239 ; Sylva, i. 55.— Hayne, Dendr. FI. 
202. — Sprengel, Syst. ii. 244. — Hooker, F7. Bor.-Am. 
ii. 153 (in part and excl. var. y). — Spach, Ann. Sci. Nat. 
sér. 2, xv. 33 (Revisio Populorum) (excl. syn. suaveo- 
upper surface, pale and often ferrugineous on the lower. 
Bot. Reg. xxix. Mise. 20. — Torrey, Fl. N. ¥. ii. 216. — 
Seringe, FZ. des Jard. ii. 65.— Wesmael, Bull. Féd. 
Soc. Hort. Belg. 1861, 335, £.14 (Monogr. Pop.) (excl. 
vars. B intermedia and y salicifolia); Mém. Soc. Sci. 
Hainaut, sér. 3, iii. 245, t. 8 (Monogr. Pop.) (excl. B suave- 
olens, y laurtfolia, and 6 viminalis).— K. Koch, Dendr. 
‘i. pt. i. 495. — Watson, Am. Jour. Sci. ser. 3, xv. 1385. — 
Beal, Am. Nat. xv. 34, f. 4. — Lauche, Deutsche Dendr. 
ed. 2, 317 (in part). — Sargent, Forest Trees N. Am. 10th 
Census U.S. ix. 173. — Mayr, Wald. Nordam. 181. — 
Watson & Coulter, Gray’s Man. ed. 6, 487. — Dippel, 
Handb. Laubholzk. ii. 205 (excl. vars. a, b, c), £. 99. — 
Koehne, Deutsche Dendr. 83. 
Populus balsamifera lanceolata, Marshall, Arbust. Am. 
108 (1785). 
Populus balsamifera, a genuina, Wesmael, De Candolle 
Prodr. xvi. pt. ii. 329 (1868). 
lens); Hist. Vég. x. 393. — Fischer, Gartenzeit. ix. 402 ; 
A tree, often a hundred feet in height, with a tall trunk six or seven feet in diameter, and stout 
erect branches usually more or less contorted near their extremities, and forming a comparatively narrow 
open head ; or smaller toward the southern limits of its range and usually not more than sixty or 
seventy feet tall. The bark on old trunks is from three quarters of an inch to an inch in thickness, 
gray tinged with red, and divided into broad rounded ridges covered with small closely appressed scales ; 
on younger stems and on the branches it is much thinner, smooth or roughened by dark excrescences, 
and light brown tinged with green. The branchlets are stout, marked with oblong light orange-colored 
lenticels, and after their first year much roughened by the thickened leaf-scars; when they first appear 
they are dark red-brown and glabrous or covered with pale caducous pubescence, and in their first 
winter are bright and lustrous, losing their lustre and becoming dark orange-color in their second year, 
and then gray tinged with yellow-green. The leaf-buds, which are saturated with a yellow balsamic 
sticky exudation, are ovate, terete, and long-pointed, the terminal being nearly an inch long and one 
third of an inch broad, and the axillary about three quarters of an inch long and one sixteenth of an 
inch broad ; they are covered with five oblong pointed concave closely imbricated thick scales dark 
chestnut-brown and lustrous on the outer surface and light green on the inner, and begin to open soon 
after midwinter. The leaves are ovate-lanceolate, three-ribbed, gradually narrowed and acute or 
acuminate at the apex, rounded or cordate at the broad or rarely narrowed base, and finely crenately 
serrate with slightly thickened revolute margins; when they unfold they are light yellow-green, coated 
with the gummy secretions of the bud and sometimes slightly puberulous, especially on the upper 
surface and on the petioles, and at maturity are thin and firm in texture, deep dark green and lustrous 
above, pale green and more or less ferrugineous and conspicuously reticulate-venulose below, from three 
to five inches long and from an inch and a half to three inches wide, with slender mbs raised and 
