94 TREES IN NATURE, MYTH & ART 



our trees in general form ; but are angular and 

 irregular in outline, and send up long stems 

 which show, almost gauntly, through the some- 

 what scanty foliage. The variety that we 

 most commonly associate with the name is the 

 Lombardy poplar, so called in France and 

 England because, though an immigrant into 

 Southern Europe from the Taurus and the 

 Himalayas by way of Persia, it has taken most 

 kindly to the river-banks of Northern Italy. 

 It was only introduced into this country as 

 late as the middle of the eighteenth century. 

 It was unknown, therefore, to Evelyn's Eng- 

 land, and he can only quote Virgil — 



Populus influviis^ 



and say "The black poplar grows rarely with 

 us ; it is a stronger and taller tree than the 

 white, the leaves more dark and not so ample. 

 Diverse stately ones of these I remember 

 about the banks of Po in Italy, which river 

 being the old Eridanus so celebrated by the 

 poets in which the temerarious Phaeton is 

 said to have been precipitated, doubtless gave 

 argument to that fiction of his sad sisters' 

 metamorphosis into these trees; but for the 



