ottsford has 



i with grand 

 oplar. We 

 a leaf much 

 I limbs less 



Petersburg 

 r, now in a 



the Great. 



favorite on 



tops of the 

 into severer 

 and thus it 



Gardens at 

 :, and with 

 and worthy 

 leborn, the 

 Kazan, the 

 For some 

 lead of it in 





Lom- 

 rs. Simon- 

 poplars of 

 a special 

 mense tree 

 diameter, 

 pendulous. 



e have, so 



size, and 



ardens at 



much like 



23 

 ASIATIC POPLARS. 



Under this vague heading, for want of a better, I will group a 

 race of poplars hardly known to us ; trees better suited to dry, 

 cold clinates than those of the monilifera and nigra types, at least 

 one would suppose so from the fact that they are the street and 

 garden trees from Moskow to Kazan, and South to Saratof, and 

 in middle Russia. They do well on dry soils, yet do not maintain 

 anything like the same healthy foliage during extreme drouth as 

 the Volga forms of the Silver poplar. Neither are they trees of 

 great size, at least not in their native climates. They seem related 

 to our Balsamifera or Balm of Gilead, yet have leaves not* pubescent 

 but smooth and whitish on the under side, and in some forms 

 singularly narrow. 



P. LAURiFOLiA. — This, Mr. Maximowitch tells me, is a medium 

 sized tree, usually 30 or 40 feet in height, and one foot in 

 diameter of trunk, as growing on the Altai Mountains. Mr. M. 

 had seldom seen it larger. It is a common street tree in North- 

 Eastern Russia. It is a fast grower, has narrow leaves curled very 

 much on their edges, and has angulated branches. A specimen 

 in the Botanic Gardens at St. Petersburg is nearly 50 feet in 

 height, and I understood it to be but 26 years planted. It seems 

 to be a faster grower than Suavolens. 



P. SUAVOLENS is a native, says Mr. Maximowitch, of very cold 

 districts in Eastern Siberia, also of Kamtschatka and the islands. 

 of the coast. It grows to a height of 50 cr 60 feet, with a trunk 

 two or three feet in diameter, and is a good street tree. Branches . 

 round. 



P. SiBERicA is another variety; foliage slightly broader, and 

 Mr. Wagner, of Riga, says it grows to be a good sized tree. This 

 must be the Siberica pyramidalis of some catalogues, and is, I 

 think, the tree we used so often to see planted in the gardens at 

 the railway stations, and which looked at a distance very like a 

 sweet cherry. 



P. BALSAMIFERA in leaf in nursery is just like the above, but 

 is said to grow into a tree of different form. We saw a specimen 

 of it in the Botanic Garden at Kazan 50 feet in height and two feet, 

 diameter. 



