WILLOW FAMILY 



light brown, smooth, dilated and irregularly divided, caducous. 

 Stamens sixty or more, with short filaments and large dark red 

 anthers, inserted on a broad oblique disk. Pistillate tree sparsely 

 flowered. Ovary subglobose, surrounded at base by a cup-shaped 

 disk. Stigmas three to four, dilated or lobed. 



Fruit. — Mature aments eight to twelve inches long. Capsule ob- 

 long-ovate, acute at apex, dark green, three to four-valved. Seed 

 oblong-ovate, rounded at apex, surrounded by a tuft of long white 

 or slightly rusty hairs which make up the mass of delicate cotton 

 that has given this tree its common name. 



With its massive pale stem, its great spreading limbs and broad head of pen- 

 dulous branches covered with fluttering leaves of the most brilliant green, Pop- 

 uliis deltoides is one of the stateliest and most beautiful inhabitants of the forests 

 of eastern America. 



—Charles S. Sargent. 



This is the tree that under the name of Carolina Poplar is 

 extensively planted in cities. It is proving itself an admir- 

 able shade-tree for the cities of the middle west where soft 

 coal is burned. Its smooth glossy leaves have just enough 

 natural varnish about them to keep the soot from clinging, 

 and so they are bright and clean and healthy when those of 

 the elm and the maple are soiled and choked and dying. 



WHITE POPLAR. ABELE-TREE 



PSpiihis alba. 

 The poplar that with silver lines his leaf. 



— COWPER. 



The green wood moved and the light poplar shook 

 Its silver pyramid of leaves. 



— Barrv Cornwall. 



The ancients consecrated the White Poplar to time because the leaves are 

 in continual agitation ; and being of a blackish green on one side, with a thick 

 white cotton on the other they were supposed to indicate the alternation of day 

 and night. 



— Sentiment of Floivers. 



The English name of this tree is derived from the Dutch 

 name, Abeel ; it is believed to have come into England by way 

 of Holland. 



