CHAP, xiv SYLVA 131 



for the whiteness and lasting, where they lie dry. 



3. They have a poplar in Virginia of a very peculi- 

 ar shap'd leaf, as if the point of it were cut off, which 

 grows very well with the curious amongst us to a 

 considerable stature. I conceive it was first brought 

 over by John Tradescant, under the name of the 

 tulip-tree, (from the likeness of its flower) but is not, 

 that I find, taken much notice of in any of our herb- 

 als : I wish we had more of them ; but they are 

 difficult to elevate at first. 



4. The aspen only (which is that kind of libyca or 

 white poplar, bearing a smaller, and more tremulous 

 leaf, (by the French call'd la tremble or quaker) 

 thrusts down a more searching foot, and in this like- 

 wise differs, that he takes it ill to have his head cut 

 off : Pliny would have short trunchions couched two 

 foot in the ground (but first two days dried) at one 

 foot and half distance, and then moulded over. 



5. There is something a finer sort of white poplar, 

 which the Dutch call abele^ and we have of late abele 

 much transported out of Holland : These are also 

 best propagated of slips from the roots, the least of 

 which will take, and may in March, at three or four 

 years growth, be transplanted. 



6. In Flanders (not in France, as a late author 

 pretends) they have large nurseries of them, which 

 first they plant at one foot distance, the mould light 

 and moist, by no means clayie, in which though they 

 may shoot up tall, yet for want of root, they never 

 spread ; for, as I said, they must be interr'd pretty 

 deep, not above three inches above ground ; and kept 

 clean, by pruning them to the middle-shoot for the 

 first two years, and so till the third or fourth. When 

 you transplant, place them at eight, ten, or twelve 



