AMENTIFERE. 193 
White Poplar. 
French, Peuplier blanc. German, Silber Pappel, Weisspappel. 
The named species of the genus populus, like those of most cultivated plants, are 
very numerous. There is, however, little doubt that the white poplar is a good 
species, and that it is now a native of Great Britain, although it is stated to have 
been originally brought to this country from Flanders. The true Populus alba, as 
well as the grey poplar (P. canescens), is found throughout the south of Europe, 
. Caucasus, Persia, and Barbary. We have no early notices of this tree. Turner, who 
wrote in 1568, says that “the white aspe is plentifull in Italy and Germany ;” but 
he does not seem to have met with it in England. But Gerard, who wrote thirty 
years after Turner, mentions having seen it at Blackwall and at Fenden, and other 
places. Whether the white poplar be a true native of England or not, there is no 
doubt that it was early cultivated in Flanders, the soil of which country seems to suit 
it, and sent over to England. Hartlib, in his “‘ Complete Husbandman,” published in 
1659, mentions, that some years before he wrote, “10,000 ahcles were sent over from 
Flanders to England, and transplanted in my English country.” The Dutch consider 
it a very valuable tree, and Evelyn says they “look upon a plantation as an ample 
portion for a daughter.” The word abele given to the tree in England, comes from 
the low Dutch abeel, significant of its hoary and aged character. 
The white poplar was known to the Greeks and Romans. It is the Aevei (leuke) 
of Theophrastus and Dioscorides. It is often referred to by Virgil in the “ Eclogues ” 
and “Georgics,” and also by Horace and Pliny, It was sacred to Hercules, and his 
devotees crowned themselves with its branches and leaves at their sacrifices. A 
legend says that Hercules destroyed Cacus in a cavern adjoining mount Aventinus, 
which was covered with white poplars, and in the moment of his triumph he bound his 
brows with a branch from one of these trees. It is also recorded that when Hercules 
returned from the infernal regions, he wore a wreath of white poplar on his head. 
The ancient believers in this fable thus account for the white colour of the under 
surface of the leaves of the poplar, this having been produced by the perspiration of 
the hero, whilst the thick smoke of the infernal regions turned the upper part of the 
leaves black. Homer in his “ Iliad ” compares the fall of Simoisius, when killed by 
Ajax, to that of a poplar :— 
“So falls a poplar that in watery ground 
Raised high its head with stately branches crowned.’ 
Ovid says that Paris had carved the name of (none on a poplar. Virgil, in the 
“ Georgics,” gives directions for cultivating the white poplar. Cowper speaks of 
“The poplar that with silver lines his leaf,” 
And Barry Cornwall says— 
“The green woods moved, and the light poplar shook 
Its silver pyramid of leaves.” 
In his “Sentimental Journey,” Sterne paints Maria as sitting under a poplar. 
All the species of poplar are remarkable for their white and tough wood, which 
accounts for the old distich written on a plank of poplar— 
“Though heart of oak be e’er so stout 
Keep me dry, and I'll see him out.” 
VOL. VIII. cc 
