254 TEEES IN WINTER 



SMALL-TOOTHED ASPEN 

 American or Quaking Aspen, Popple, Poplar, Aspen. 



Populus tremuloides Michx. 



HABIT — As generally found a small tree 35-40 ft. hig-h, though not 

 infrequently reaching 50-60 ft. in height with a trunk diameter of lYz 

 ft. or more; trunk tapering, continuous into top of tree; main branches 

 slender, scattered, often drooping at the ends forming an open, narrow, 

 round-topped head; spreading by means of root suckers. 



BARK — On young trunks and branches thin, pale yellowish-brown, 

 orange-green or nearly white with dark blotches below the branches, 

 smooth with horizontal raised ridges (often encircling limbs); on older 

 trunks especially toward the base, thick, furrowed and nearly black. 



TWIGS — Slender, round, bright reddish-brown, smooth, shining. Older 

 twigs grayish-brown, roughened by elevated leaf-scars and by swollen 

 bases of detached branchlets. LENTICELS — light reddish-orange, scat- 

 tered, oblong. PITH — 5-pointed, star-shaped. 



LiEAF-SCARS — .Alternate, more than 2-ranked, large, inversely trian- 

 gular, covered with light colored corky layer, upper edge of scar more 

 or less depressed. STIPULE-SCARS — blackish, more or less conspicuous, 

 BUNDLE-SCARS — 3, simple or each compounded. 



BUDS — Narrowly conical, sharp-pointed, generally appressed especi- 

 ially toward apex of twig or incurved, about 5-7 mm. long, shining, 

 slightly sticky but not fragrant; flower buds larger, ovate. BUD- 

 SCALES — 6 or 7 in number, smooth, reddish-brown, shining, scarious 

 along the margins; the first scale of lateral buds anterior, (i.e. facing 

 outward), reaching about % of the way to the apex, often splitting at 

 the top. 



FRUIT — A catkin of small capsules with hairy seeds ripening in 

 spring. 



COMPARISONS — In general habit and bark characters the Small- 

 toothed resembles the Large-toothed Aspen. It is readily distinguished 

 from the latter by its shining reddish-brown, often slightly sticky, 

 mostly appressed buds which are free from down. Those of the Large- 

 toothed Aspen are thicker, dull, dusty-looking, more or less gray-downy, 

 and for the most part divergent. The bark of the Small-toothed Aspen 

 is generally somewhat lighter in color, often nearly white and generally 

 earlier and more deeply roughened at the base; the larger branches of 

 the Large-toothed Aspen have a tendency to grow out at a wider 

 angle with the trunk than those of the Small-toothed Aspen. The 

 buds resemble somewhat those of the Balsam Poplar but are much 

 smaller, only slightly sticky and not fragrant. It is separated from the 

 Carolina Poplar and Lombardy Poplar by its reddish twigs, those of the 

 latter two species being yellow; from the Silver Poplar by absence of 

 down on twigs. 



DISTRIBUTION — In practically all soils and situations except in deep 

 swamps though more often in dry ground; one of the first trees to 

 take possession of clearings or burnt lands. Newfoundland, Labrador, 

 and Nova Scotia to the Hudson Bay region and Alaska; south to New 

 Jersey, along the mountains in Pennsylvania and Kentucky, ascending 

 3,000 feet in the Adirondacks; west to the slopes of the Rocky mountains, 

 along which it extends to Mexico and lower (i^alifornia. 



IN NEW ENGLAND — Common, reaching in the White Mountain region 

 an altitude of 3,000 ft. 



WOOD — Light brown, with nearly white sapwood of 25-30 layers of 

 annual growth, soft, weak, and soon decaying; used in great quantities 

 for paper pulp and in, the manufacture of excelsior. 



