Populus 1 793 



Catkins with deep narrowly lobed scales, fringed with long hairs ; differing 

 chiefly from the other aspens in the pubescent disc and ovary ; stamens six to twelve ; 

 style divided into four long filiform lobes ; capsule two-valved. 



This species is much less widely spread in North America than the other aspen 

 (P. tremuloides), apparently requiring a moister soil, and mainly growing in deep 

 sand on the banks of rivers and swamps. It occurs in Ontario, southern Quebec, 

 Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick, extending southward in the United States to 

 north Delaware on the coast, and along the Alleghany Mountains to North Carolina, 

 and westwards to Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, and Tennessee. 



According to Dame and Brooks, 1 it is best distinguished from P. tremu- 

 loides in early spring, by the colour of the unfolding leaves, which are cottony 

 white, whilst those of P. tremuloides appear yellowish green. The leaves when 

 open are much larger and more coarsely toothed, and the buds divergent, dull, and 

 dusty- looking ; whilst those of P. tremuloides are mostly appressed and highly 

 polished with a resinous lustre. In Canada it generally grows on sandy soil, mixed 

 with pines, and is often mistaken for aspen. It is never a large tree, though usually 

 larger than P. tremuloides, and as Elwes saw it, near Ottawa, is a straggling, ill- 

 shaped tree of 40 to 50 ft. high, liable to be broken by the wind, and of little or no 

 value either for use or ornament. 



Though introduced, according to Loudon, 2 in 1772, it has always been a scarce 

 tree in England, and the only specimen at Kew died about a year ago. At Grays- 

 wood, Haslemere, a tree obtained from Meehan in 1887 is only 16 ft. high, and 

 apparently this species does not thrive in our climate. 



The weeping grafted tree, commonly cultivated under the name P. grandidentata, 

 var. pendula, differs from that species in flowers and other characters, 8 and may be 

 distinguished as follows : 



Populus pseudo-grandidentata, Dode, in Mim. Soc. Hist. Nat. Autun, xviii. 31 

 (1905)- 



Populus tremula, Linnaeus, var. pseudo-grandidentata, Ascherson and Graebner, Syn. Mitteleurop. 

 Flora, iv. 26 (1908). 



Young branchlets stout, dark reddish, with orange lenticels, covered with whitish 

 tomentum in spring, which persists in summer at the base of the shoots. Buds 

 viscid, tomentose near the top of the branchlet, glabrescent elsewhere. Leaves 

 (Plate 408, Fig. 8) similar in shape and dentation to P. tremula, but larger, 3 to 

 4 in. in diameter, and thicker in texture ; margin with a translucent border, ciliate 

 in spring. Staminate catkins, 2 in. long, with a slender pubescent axis ; pedicels 

 glabrous ; stamens five, on an oblique glabrous shallow spatulate disc, which is entire 

 in margin ; filaments slender, white ; anthers red. 



The origin of this plant is unknown, but it is probably a hybrid ; and if it came 



1 Trees of New England, 32 (1902). 



2 Trees and Shrubs, 823 (1842). It was introduced earlier into France, as it is well figured as P. tremula, ampliori folio, 

 by Duhamel, Traiti des Arbres, ii. 178, pi. 38, fig. 8 (1755). 



3 In P. grandidentata the leaves are ovate, long acuminate, with fewer and larger teeth than in the weeping tree ; 

 stamens more numerous, with short filaments ; pedicels and disc pubescent. 



