THE ASPEN. 



P</pulus trem'ula L. 



The chief structural characters of the Aspen are 

 that its shoots are downy, and its leaves on very 

 long stalks ; those on the suckers heart-shaped, 

 pointed, but not toothed ; those on the branches 

 rounded, with incurved teeth ; and all of them silky 

 on the under surface when young, though generally 

 becoming smooth later. Its buds are slightly viscid, 

 and the flowers in the female catkins are densely 

 crowded together. The lobed catkin-scales are 

 fringed with hairs ; the two stigmas are each divided 

 into two erect segments; and in the male plant 

 each catkin-scale bears generally eight stamens 

 in its axil. 



The Aspen is not usually a large tree, though 

 Loudon records a specimen at Castle Howard, in 

 Yorkshire, 130 feet high, and three and a half feet' 

 in diameter, and various other examples reaching 

 diameters of four feet, and one at Bothwell Castle, 

 Renfrewshire, 117 feet in the spread of its branches. 

 This latter tree was eighty, years old ; but the species 

 is not a long-lived one, and, like all Poplars, is very 

 liable to rot from the tearing off of boughs by wind, 

 and to subsequent attacks by various insects. As 

 the tree gets older its horizontal branches become 

 pendulous. The young shoots are generally reddish, 

 with prominent brown hairs or both these shoots 



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