1286 POPULUS. [CLASS XXII, ORDER YI, 
English Botany, t. 1619.—English Flora, vol. iv. p. 248.—Hooker, 
British Flora, ed. 4. vol. i. p. 376.—Lindley, Synopsis, p. 238. 
Root erceping as widely and putting up suckers as abundantly as 
the last. Zrunk erect, from eighty to a hundred feet high, with 
smooth silvery grey bark, its branches spreading, though less so than 
P. alba. Leaves roundish, rather than ovate, not distinetly heart- 
shaped at the base, unequally and obtusely toothed, smooth, dark 
green above, white and downy beneath, but less so than those of 
P. alba, and sometimes smooth, the footstalks rather long, com- 
pressed, with a pair of stipules at the base, though often wanting. 
Catkins longer, pendulous, with more regularly pectinated scales : 
these, together with the stigmas, being double the number of P. alba, 
are the most obvious marks of distinction between these two nearly 
allied species. 
Habitat.—Wet turfy meadows and dry heaths; frequent in Norfolk. 
Tree ; flowering in March. 
The properties and uses to which these two species are applied are 
so similar that we give them both at the same time, indeed they have 
by some botanists been considered varieties of the same species. 
The trees are of rapid growth, and more so when planted upon the 
banks of streams ; but like all other trees of rapid growth they are of 
but short duration, attaining maturity in wet places in about fifty 
years, while in dry ones they last from ten to twenty years more : 
they seldom exceed two hundred years old under the most favourable 
circumstances. In woods they rapidly propagate themselves by 
suckers, which soon form young trees, useful for poles, fuel, &e. 
The Poplar, as we have already mentioned, was well known to the 
Romans, indeed Pliny mentions three species, and states that they 
were planted as a prop for vines; and at the present time in many 
parts of Italy it is almost the only tree planted by the bank sides and 
borders of fields in moist soil, for the support of the vines, while the 
upper branches cut every year are used as fuel, especially for heating 
ovens. ‘The ancients supposed the leaves possessed many medi- 
cinal properties, and applied them for the cure of various diseases; 
and it was the opinion of some of the old writers that amber was the 
produce of the Poplars planted on the banks of the River Po, an 
idea arising from a poetical fable that those trees were originally 
the sisters of Phaeton, metamorphosed by Jupiter, for weeping 
over the body of their brother, who had been consumed by 
celestial fire, for his rashness in driving his flying horses out 
of their usual track, and that their tears constantly dropping 
from the leaves of the Poplars congealed into the fragrant 
amber (See also Alder glutinosa). We are also told that the white 
Poplar was speciaily dedicated to Hercules, because he destroyed 
Cacus in a cavern adjoining Mount Aventinus, which was covered 
with these trees. Cacus was a famous robber, son of Vulean and 
