BOTANICAL NOTES ON BRITISH FOREST TREES. 337 



and caducous. Catkins cylindrical, sessile, stiff, silky. 

 Flowers in spring. Style long. 



Wood hardly distinguishable from the others. 



19. WHITE POPLAR. 

 Populus alba (L.). Salicineae. 



Large tree, with grey-green often tomentose twigs. 

 Branches marked with lozenge-shaped cracks, becoming 

 long furrows as the bark forms. 



Buds short, conical, brown and scaly ; often mealy or 

 tomentose. 



Leaves coriaceous, oval to sub-orbicular, with angular 

 lobes and sinuses or teeth, white with cottony hairs 

 below (especially when young), and on round petioles. 

 The leaves of suckers are often larger, 3 to 5-lobed, and 

 more woolly. 



Flowers in monoecious, cylindrical greenish catkins, 

 with fimbriated and silky scales. Female catkins at 

 length brown. 



Fruits ovoid, smooth, and opening in two valves like 

 the Willows. 



Wood soft, white to yellow-brown, with vessels and 

 medullary rays very fine. 



Seeds minute, comose. Seedling very small. 



20. ASPEN. 

 Populus tremula (L.). Salicinese. 



Moderately large tree, with more slender branches 

 than P. alba. 



VOL. II. Z 



