16. POPULCS ALBA WHITE POPLAR. 39 



r>ES. Used in turnery in the manufacture of wooden- ware, shoe- 

 lasts, etc. 



MEDICINAL PROPERTIES. Xone are known of this species. 



ORDER SALICACEJE WILLOW FAMILY. 



Leaves alternate, simple, undivided and furnished with stipules, which are either 

 scale-like and deciduous, or leaf-like and persistent. Flowers dioecious, both kinds 

 in catkins, one under each bract of scale of the catkin, and destitute of both calyx 

 and corolla, or tlie former represented by a gland-like cup; ovary 1-2-celled; styles 

 wanting, or 2 and short; stigmas often 2-lobed. Fruit a 1- or 2-celled, 2-valved 'pod 

 with numerous seeds springing from 2 parietal or basal placenta? and furnished with 

 long, silky down; seeds ascending, anatropous, without albumen; cotyledons flat. 



Trees or shrubs of rapid growth, light wood and bitter bark. 



GEXUS POPULUS, TOTTRX. 



Leaves broad, more or less heart-shaped or ovate, and long and often vertically 

 compressed petioles. Flowers appearing before the leaves in long, drooping, lateral, 

 cylindrical catkins, the scales of which are furnished with a fringed margin; 

 calyx represented by an oblique, cup-shaped disk with entire margin; stamens, 8-30 

 or more, with distinct filaments; pistil with very short, bifid style, and large 2-lobed 

 stigma. Fruit as described for the order. 



Represented mostly by rather large trees. (A Latin word, meaning the people, and 

 applicable either from the fact that these trees are often set along public walks, or 

 in allusion to the tremulous leaves which are in constant agitation like a crowd of 

 people.) 



96. POPULUS ALBA, L. 



WHITE POPLAR, ABELE. 



Ger., Alberj Fr., Peuplier Uanc ; Sp., Alamo Uanco. 



SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. Leaves broad-ovate, cordate at base, acute at apex, sinu- 

 ate-toothed, above dark-green and smooth (excepting when young); below, the 

 petioles, and new growth white tomentose ; branchlets terrete. Flowers with scales 

 of catkins crenate, fringed ; stigmas four. Fruit an oblong-conical thin 2-valved 

 capsule containing very small seeds. 



(Alba is the Latin for irhite, appropriately descriptive of the prominent whiteness 

 of the under surface of the leaves.) 



A tree attaining the height of 75 or 80 ft. (25 m.) and 2 or 3 feet 

 (0.75 m.) in diameter of trunk, clothed in an ash-gray bark rough with firm 

 longitudinal ridges, that of the branches very smooth, light-gray and 

 furnished with copious bloom. It develops an ovoid or round top, and 

 nothing in the foliage of trees is more striking than is here seen, the 

 dark green upper surfaces of the leaves glinting, as it were, when agi- 

 tated by the breezes, in strong contrast with the almost snowy whiteness 

 of the under surfaces. 



HABITAT. Introduced into this country from Europe as an orna- 

 mental tree, and now naturalized very widely, spreading mostly by the 

 root, but occasionally from seed. 



