40 HOUGH'S AMERICAN WOODS. 



PHYSICAL PROPERTIES. Wood very soft, light, close-grained, quite 

 tough, satiny and of a delicate lemon-brown color with nearly white 

 sap-wood. 



USES. Though doubtless a valuable wood for light lumber, wooden- 

 ware, paper-pulp, etc., as with some of the other Poplars, little use is 

 made of the tree in this country save for ornamental purposes. For that 

 it has been long popular and extensively planted. 



MEDICINAL PROPERTIES are not recorded of this tree. 



97. POPULUS HETEROPHYLLA, L. 



SWAMP POPLAR, DOWKY POPLAR, RIVER COTTONWOOD. 

 Ger., Sumpf-Pappel; Fr., Peuplier marecageaux; Sp., Alamo pantano so. 



SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: Leaves ovate-orbicular, large, 4 to 8 in. in length, obtuse 

 or rounded at the apex, truncate or heart-shaped at base, the lobes often over-closed, 

 obscurely serrate with short teeth, whitish-toraentose throughout when young but 

 finally glabrous excepting along the veins; petioles terete. Flowers as described for 

 the order and genus; fertile catkins; few-flowered. Fruit, 3-valved capsules about 

 ^ in. in length and with large seeds. 



(The specific name, heterophylla, is from the Greek ZrepoS, different and cpvXXov 

 leaf, perhaps referring to the difference between the young and the old conditions of 

 the leaf as it loses its pubescence with age.) 



A medium-size tree, rarely over 80 ft. (24 m.) in hight or 2 ft. (0. CO 

 m.) in diameter of trunk, with few and large branches and reddish-gray 

 bark of trunk deeply furrowed longitudinally making prominent and 

 firmly adherent ridges. 



HABITAT. From Connecticut along the coast to Georgia and through 

 the Gulf States to western Louisiana; also in the Ohio River valley and 

 in Arkansas, growing in moist swampy land, It is a rare and local tree, 

 said to attain its greatest development in the Ohio Eiver basin. 



PHYSICAL PROPERTIES. Wood very light, soft, weak, close-grained, 

 compact and with numerous very fine medullary rays; of a light brown 

 color, often with a distinct bluish or gray cast and with whitish sap- 

 wood. Specific Gravity, 0.4089; Percentage of Ash, 0.81; Relative Ap- 

 proximate Fuel Value, 0.4056; Coefficient of Elasticity, 72338; Modulus 

 of Rupture, 64-2; Resistance to Longitudinal Pressure, 283; Resistance to 

 Indentation, 86; Weight of a Cubic Foot in Pounds, 25.48. 



USES. Little use is made of this uncommon timber, but were it pro- 

 curable in quantities it would doubtless be applied to the same uses as 

 the other Poplars, such as for wooden-ware, light lumber, paper-pulp, etc. 



MEDICINAL PROPERTIES. So far as known the products of this tree 

 do not enter into medicine. 



