THE LARGE-TOOTHED ASPEN OR POPLAR 



DURING a brief period in early spring the Large-toothed Poplar is the most con- 

 spicuous tree in the forest. When the buds are pushing into leaves the young 

 growth is so thickly covered with a cottony down that the white tree stands forth 

 strongly revealed against the darker background of the neighboring branches. When the 

 leaves are fully expanded much of this whiteness is lost and the tree resumes its normally 

 inconspicuous position among its neighbors. 



Some time before the developing leaves show themselves the tree sends out its 

 long, pendent festoons of greenish gray, or reddish, odorless blossoms, those bearing pollen 

 upon one tree being reddish while those bearing pistils upon another, are gray green, the 

 species depending upon the wind to carry the fertilizing pollen from the one to the other. 

 In appearance these blossoming catkins resemble those of the Aspen, but a close examina- 

 tion will show a hairy covering upon the scales at the base of the catkins instead of the 

 varnish-like coating upon the bud-scales of the Aspen. The seeds mature in May or June, 

 and are covered with a wooly down that enables them to float in the air. 



In summer the Large-toothed Aspen is easily distinguished by its good-sized leaves, 

 coarsely dentate on the margins, with long, vertically flattened petioles that give the blades 

 great freedom of motion. The side margins of the blades are usually turned upward so 

 that the upper surface of the leaf is concave, a circumstance which renders them much 

 more likely to be constantly twisted by the wind than if the blades were flat. In autumn 

 the leaves turn yellow before falling, some of those on the tips of the twigs occasionally 

 assuming a beautiful orange-red hue. The leaves on the suckers that spring up from under- 

 ground roots or about the base of a stump are very different from the normal leaves of the 

 species, being larger, generally serrate rather than dentate, and commonly covered on the 

 under surface with a cottony down. 



The bark of the tree-trunk is usually dark gray in color and marked with rather 

 short vertical furrows which, on trees of medium size, do not extend very far. The bark, 

 as a rule, is distinctly darker than the bark of Aspen trees of corresponding size, and there 

 is not so striking a difference in color at the junction of the branches with the trunk as 

 there is in the case of the Aspen. The buds are pointed and downy, the latter being a 

 distinguishing characteristic. 



This species is native to a great region in the Northeast, extending from Nova 

 Scotia, Quebec and Minnesota on the north to Iowa, Kentucky and Delaware on the South. 



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