54 THE RING OF NATURE 



men say that a sulphurous rain has fallen. It is 

 while the pollen is flying that the scent of the pine- 

 woods is most apparent. It is then that we fill 

 the lungs with ecstasy, and declare how much good 

 we are receiving. Each grain is, in fact, no more to 

 us than the theoretical particles of which an odour 

 is composed. Perhaps to some very tiny creatures 

 the air seems full of flying pebbles or balls of resin. 



The silver poplar, the black poplar, the tall 

 Lombardy, the balsam and the cotton-wood have 

 all swung out their incredibly thick and solid tails 

 apparently grown in a few hours. They require 

 a good deal of sun to set their powder flying, and 

 it often happens that a cold wind brings the catkins 

 down before the powder has been shed. The 

 Lombardy poplar really comes from the Himalayas, 

 and reached this country from Turin in 1758. 

 Suppose that I say next that there is only one tree 

 of its kind in Great Britain to-day. 



I would not go quite so far as that. Every one 

 knows that tall steeple-like poplar whose branches, 

 instead of spreading outward like the oak, grow 

 parallel with the trunk. That is Populus fastigiata, 

 and its Latin name is unusually easy to understand. 

 If you cut off a branch and stick it in the ground, 

 it is fairly certain to grow ; and even if it has been 

 roughed into a stake or a gate-post, it will equally 

 become a tree. Then is it a new tree or only part 

 of the old one ? If the tree from which it was 

 cut was a male, the stake grows up a male and 

 never a female ; and because Lord Rochford only 



