THE POPLARS 79 



first prophecies of spring; tlien the buds cast their brown 

 scales and fuzzy gray catkins are revealed. There are few 

 shades of olive and rose, few textures of silk and velvet 

 that are not dupHcated as the catkins lengthen and dance 

 like chenille fringe from every twig. With the flowers, the 

 new leaves open; each blade limp, silky, as it unrolls, more 

 like the finest white flannel than anything else. (See illus- 

 trations, pages 86-87.) Soon the leaves shed all of this hairy, 

 protective coat, passing through various tones of pink and 

 silver on their way to their lustrous, bright green maturity. 

 Their stems are flattened in a plane at right angles with the 

 blade. Being long and pliant besides, they catch the breeze 

 on blade or stem, and so the foliage is never still on the 

 quietest of summer days. "Popple" leaves twinkle and 

 dance and catch the sunlight like ripples on the surface of a 

 stream, wliile the foliage of oaks and other trees near by 

 may be practically motionless. 



The Balsam Poplar 



P. halsamifera, Linn. 



The balsam poplar is the balm of Gilead of the early 

 settlers, the Tacamahac of the Northern Indians. They 

 squeezed the fragrant wax from the winter buds and used it 

 to seal up the seams in their birch-bark canoes. The bees 

 taught the Indian the uses of this glutinous secretion, 

 which the tree used to seal the bud-scales and thus keep out 

 water. When growth starts with the stirring of the sap, 

 this wax softens; then the bees collect and store it against a 

 day of need . Whether their homes be hollow trees or patent 

 hives, weather-cracks are carefully sealed up with this water- 

 proof gum, which the bee-keeper knows as ^^ propolis.''* 



