THE LOMBARDY POPLAR 77 



into trees, either Poplars or Alders, the poets not being 

 agreed as to the species. In their despair they clasped 

 their hands above their heads until there they became 

 fixed, while their long hair, which hung like a veil 

 around them, changed into leaves from which their 

 tears flowed without ceasing. Black Poplars, at any 

 rate, are plentiful to-day upon the banks of the Po, 

 and their water-pores exude tears as the sun shines 

 upon them with paternal affection. Black Poplars 

 may therefore well have been, as Spenser says, 



"Those trees, in whose transformed hue 

 The Sun's sad daughters wailed the rash decay 

 Of Phaeton, whose limbs with lightnings rent, 

 They gathering up, with sweet tears did lament." 



Though a merely " fastigiate " habit is not gener- 

 ally considered a character of specific importance, the 

 presence of suckers in the Lombardy Poplar is an im- 

 portant distinction between it and the Black Poplar, 

 with which botanists generally unite it. The absence 

 of the grey hairiness common on the leaves of other 

 species, which has earned for its allied form the in- 

 appropriate name of " Black," is equally characteristic 

 of the Lombardy Poplar. 



This fastigiate variety is probably a native of the 

 mountains of Western or Northern Asia, perhaps of 

 Persia. It has been common in that country, and in 

 Kashmir and the Punjaub, from very early times, and 

 is often planted along the roadsides in those distant 

 lands, as it is in France, its somewhat scanty shade- 

 producing powers being there of more importance 

 than they are with us. Introduced from these 

 countries into Southern Europe, the tree derives its 



