TREES OF AMERICA. 161 



stems ; and this same hairiness is found too 

 on the backs of the young leaves. 



" The Virginian poplar is sixty or seventy 

 feet high : the trunk is round, and not with 

 angles, like most of the other kinds. The 

 leaves are small, heart-shaped, and as broad 

 as they are long ; the young branches are 

 angular, but as they grow old they become 

 round ; the wood is very soft, and is never 

 used except for burning. 



" The fifth kind of poplar is called cotton- 

 tree." 



"Why, Uncle Philip, you told us about 

 that a little while ago." 



" No, that was the cotton-wood ; the name 

 of cotton-tree is given to another kind ; it is 

 a very bad plan to give names so much alike 

 to different species, but we must take them 

 as we find them. The cotton-wood, however, 

 is very much like the cotton-tree ; it grows in 

 the Southern States, but is by no means com- 

 mon there : it is a fine large tree, seventy or 

 eighty feet high ; the branches are round, and 

 not angular like those of the cotton-tree ; the 

 leaves are covered, when quite young, with a 

 thick white down, which gradually goes off 

 on the upper side, leaving it perfectly smooth. 



