845 



of the stigmas in any of our British poplars. In Guimpel and 

 Hayne's ' Abbildung der Deutschen Holtzarten,' ii. t. 201, 202, are 

 good figures of P. alba and canescens, the branch of the latter appa- 

 rently from a young tree or shoot ; in this the stigmas are drawn as 

 small, upright, green, decurrent, and apparently two-cleft (seen in 

 perspective), not as in E. B., large, spreading, reddish, and palmately 

 four-cleft (nor as eight separate stigmas, as Smith assigns the species). 

 In Fl. Danica the figures of these species in vol. xiii. t. 2182 — 83, 

 though finely engraved, represent the stigmas as precisely the same 

 in each, namely, four, simple, filiform and spreading; the former 

 plate intending to represent P. alba, so far agreeing with the charac- 

 ter laid down by Smith, but the leafy branch is more like what I 

 should have called P. canescens, having roundish, sinuate, unlobed 

 leaves, of small size, and like those of P. tremula in t. 2184. The 

 plate 2183, professing to give the true canescens, has leaves of a very 

 ambiguous character, quite deltoid or triangular, like the smaller ones 

 of P. alba, but the stigmas, as before stated, are the same in both, and 

 quite unlike those in E. Botany or in the German work just quoted. 

 This remarkable discrepancy in the form of the stigmas in three works 

 of such repute for accuracy, coupled with my own observations on the 

 same organ in P. tremula, to be noticed presently, lead to the infe- 

 rence that the stigmas are liable to great variation in size, shape and 

 colour, and therefore cannot be safely trusted as discriminative of the 

 species in this genus. From all that has been said I think it more 

 than probable that P. alba and canescens are but forms of one spe- 

 cies,* of which P. canescens may be considered as the typical state, 

 as oftenest found wild, and P. alba as a variety with larger leaves, re- 

 sulting from cultivation or a moister and richer soil. 



Populus tremula. In low, damp, also in dry upland woods and 

 thickets, especially on stiff clay soils ; a truly, and perhaps the only 

 really, indigenous poplar in this county and island. Abundant in 

 Quarr Copse, and on the wet, slipped land along the shore betwixt 

 Ryde and the Priory, &c. In Shanklin Chine. Frequent in woods 

 about Cowes. In Stapler's Copse, Nunswood Copse and elsewhere 

 about Yarmouth, abundantly. In Barton or Bucket's Copse, between 

 Osborne and Barton farm (the property of her Majesty) are some very 

 fine aspens of great height and size. Woods at Selborne and in 



* Les caracteres clu P. canescens se nuancent tellement avec ceux de P. alba, quil 

 serait peutetre plus avantageux de les reunir. — Lestiboudois Bolaiiog. Belgique, ii. 

 p. 460. 



