161 

 THE WHITE POPLAR, OR ABELE TREE. 



POPULUS ALBA. 



THE GREY POPLAR. 



POPULUS CANESCENS. 



THERE appears to be some doubt among authors whether 

 both these trees ought to be considered as natives of 

 Britain, or whether the latter only is indigenous. Evelyn 

 describes the White Poplar, and mentions also a finer sort, 

 " which the Dutch call Abele, 1 and we have of late much 

 of it transported out of Holland." About the middle of 

 the sixteenth century, as many as 10,000 trees of the same 

 kind are said by Hartlif to have been imported from 

 Flanders, and transplanted into many countries. The 

 fact is, the trees are so much alike in character, that we 

 may safely conclude that the tree which we call the Grey 

 Poplar was known to the earlier writers as a native tree 

 by the name White Poplar, which title was subsequently 

 transferred, for the sake of distinction, to the Abele ; the 

 British tree receiving the epithet of "grey" for the same 

 reason. The mere casual observer would scarcely observe 

 the difference between the two : botanists, indeed, are not 

 agreed whether they are distinct species, or only varieties. 

 It is, therefore, scarcely worth inquiring to which kind 

 should be referred Cowper's 



"Poplar, that with silver lines his leaf;" 

 or what tree Barry Cornwall commemorated when he 



" The green woods moved, and the light Poplar shook 

 Its silver pyramid of leaves." 



1 The English name of Abele is derived from the Dutch name of 

 the tree, Abeel ; and this name is supposed by some to be taken 

 from that of the city of Arbela, in the plains of Nineveh, near 

 which, on the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates, great numbers 

 of these trees grow. London. 



