74 



TREES GROWING NEAR WATER. 



garded as a variety, by the width of its leaves with their cor- 

 date bases and ciliate margins and by their pubescence. 



The seeds have wonderfully "ne hairs which envelop the 

 fruit with thick masses of soft, snow-white cotton. The illus- 

 tration shows the pistillate calkins at maturity. Then the seeds 

 become detached from their capsules and are wafted by the 

 breezes to great distances from the trees. 



COTTONWOOD. RIVER POPLAR. CAROLINA POPLAR. 

 NECKLACE POPLAR. {Plate XX VI J) 



Pdpulus delioldes. 



FAMILY SHAPE 



H-'illow, Symmetrical, open 

 head. 



HEIGHT RANGE 



So-ijoyV^/. Quebec westward and 

 southward to N. _/., /'/«. 

 and Ne7v Mexico. 



TIME OF BLOOM 

 April. 

 Fruit: J- 



Bark : granite-grey; smooth when young but becoming rough and furr>...^d 

 with age and breaking off in short, flaky pieces. Branchlets : greenish. Lgaf- 

 buds: glutinous, with a substance like balsam. Leaves: simple; alternate, 

 with stout petioles which are flattened sidewise ; broadly-ovate, with taper- 

 pointed apex and squared or slightly cordate base. Irregularly and coarsely 

 serrate, with incurved teeth; when young, sticky and fragrant like balsam; 

 occasionally coarsely pubescent underneath ; the margins fringed ; at maturity 

 bright green, smooth and glossy above, paler below; ribs whitish on both 

 sides; thick. Fhnvers i dioecious; growing in catkins, and appearing before 

 the leaves; the fertile ones sometimes a foot long; their scales cut-fringed. 

 Sterile catkins: growing on stout stems ; dense. Seeds : covered with a whit- 

 ish or rusty coloured substance. 



There is to-day standing in Washington Hollow, Dutchess 

 county, New York, a cotton-wood tree the trunk of which 

 measures fifteen feet, two and a half inches in circumference. 

 The soft grey of its bark and its lustrous restless foliage form 

 an imposing spectacle against the sky. By those that live near 

 its shade its slightest movements are watched with interest. 

 Owing to the softness of its wood large branches are apt to 

 break away from the tree when there is a high wind. To look 

 out in the night when a storm is raging and see that all is 

 safe, — that no danger is impending from the cotton-wood, — has 

 become a custom. During the first part of June it is also a 

 care to those that live near it. It is then that its tiny seeds 

 which are not more than one twelfth of an inch long begin to 



