AMENTIFERZ. 199 
drooping and 4 to 6 inches long in fruit: stigmas very thick, uneven, 
spreading-reflexed. Capsules roundish-ovoid, distant, stalked. The 
scales of the buds are yellowish, shining, and viscous, but the outer 
scales of the flower-buds are sometimes faintly pubescent, at other times 
quite glabrous, like those of the leaf-buds. The branches, petioles, and 
even the lamina of the leaves, have at first a few hairs on them, but 
very soon become quite glabrous. 
Black Poplar. 
French, Peuplier noir. German, Schwarzpappel. 
Till about the beginning of the present century, the black poplar was most exten- 
sively introduced into British plantations, but recently it has been superseded by 
other varieties. The wood of this species is applicable to all the uses of the white 
poplar. Its most general use on the Continent is for packing-cases, more especially 
for wine-cases. The wood is yellow, soft, and fibrous, and splits more readily than 
the wood of other species. It never splinters, and, according to Evelyn, is incom- 
parable for making trays, bowls, and other turners’ ware. It is used for making 
clogs, and for the soles, as well as the heels, of shoes. It is employed by the cartwright, 
and Vitruvius reckons it among the building timbers. Planted thick, and cut down 
for rafters, poles, and rails, few trees make a quicker return. It forms but indifferent 
fuel, being in this respect greatly inferior to birch. In Russia the bark is used for 
preparing morocco leather, and when pulverised it is eaten by sheep. In Britain it 
is consumed like the oak for tanning leather. The bark of the old trunk being very 
thick, light, and corky, is used by fishermen to support their nets, and, it is said, is 
also substituted for cork in bottles. The buds, macerated in boiling water, and 
afterwards bruised in a mortar and pressed, yield a fat substance which burns like 
wax, and exhales a fine odour, The balsamic sap with which the buds are covered, 
forms the basis of what Gerard calls “that profitable ointment unguentum populeum, 
which is used as a soothing remedy against nervous diseases and hemeroides.” He 
also says, “ The leaves and young buds do assuage the paine of the gout in the hands 
or feet, being made into an ointment with May butter. It is good against all inflam- 
mations, bruises, squats, falls, and such like.” 
The young shoots of the black poplar may be used as a substitute for those of the 
willow in basket-making. The cottony substance which surrounds the seeds has 
been used in Germany and France as wadding, and it has also been manufactured 
into cloth hats and paper; but the expense of collecting it, and the want of length 
and elasticity in the fibre prevented the success of the experiment. 
There is an old fable related by Ovid, that when Phaeton, by his heedless driving 
of the chariot of the Sun, set half the world on fire, he was hurled therefrom by 
Jupiter into the Po, where he was drowned, and his sisters, the Heliades, wandering 
on the banks of the river, were changed into trees, but the poets do not agree as to 
whether they were poplars or alders. The evidence in favour of the poplar consists 
in there being abundance of black poplars on the banks of the Po; in the poplar, in 
common with other aquatic trees, being so surcharged with moisture as to have it 
exude through the pores of the leaves, which may be literally said to weep; and in 
there being no trees on which the sun shines more brightly than on the black poplar, 
thus still showing gleams of parental affection to the only memorial left of the un- 
happy son whom his fondness had contributed to destroy. 
