PopuluS.] AMENTACE^. 461 



copse are also some old and many young Irees, apparently wild, 1839. Hedges 

 about Greak Part farm, and in a lane leading to the Wilderness. Truly wild in 

 Norfolk and other parts of England, and possibly so in this island. 



"A great tree, " with smooth bark and spreading branches" {Br. Fl.) Leaves 

 large, triangular or trowel-shaped, all deeply and conspicuously angular, toothed 

 and lobed, the under surface snow-white. 



p.* A tree of considerable size and height, usually more branched than the 

 Aspen, the branches slenderer and less drooping at the end or recurved, the bark 

 light gray or ash-colour, rough or chapped in old trees, smooth in the younger. 

 In very young trees of ji. the leaves are ample, trowel-shaped, sharply toothed and 

 very hoary beneath, in which state they greatly resemble the true P. alba ; but in 

 the adult tree the leaves have nearly the orbicular outline of those of P. tremula, 

 with the blunt sinuate toothing of the latter, retaining only the very deep blackish 

 green above and cottony whiteness beneath, which distinguish the true Abele. 

 Yet even this characteristic of hoariness is liable to alteration, for, whilst in most 

 of its stations with us P. canescens retains its silvery appearance unchanged, a 

 large treef on a common near Pagham exhibits a partial disposition to become 

 glabrous on both sides of the leaves, as in the Aspen. 



Staminate catkins slenderer than in P. tremula, cylindrical, pendulous, about 

 3^ inches long when full-blown, their axes hairy. Floral bracts paler than in P. 

 tremula, with shorter points, and hence less palmate. Perianth on a shortish 

 pedicel, smooth. Stamens 6 — 10, mostly 8 in my specimens ; anthers dull purple. 

 I have not hitherto been enabled to procure pistillate catkins of the present spe- 

 cies, to examine the number and form of the stigmas, the few trees producing 

 those of either sex being some very tall individuals near Osborne park, and quite 

 out of reach, from their height. The species creeps so amazingly by the root that 

 it is not surprising it should rarely produce flowers, which is however no proof of 

 its not being indigenous with us, since in the N. of Europe the common Ivy is 

 for the most part barren, though truly native. 



9. P. tremula, L. Asp or Aspen. Tremhling Poplar. Vect. 

 Apse. Pipple. " Leaf-buds glabrous shining slightly viscous, 

 leaves nearly orbicular and bluntly sinuato-toothed soon glabrous 

 on both sides, fertile catkins as large as the barren ones, scales of 

 both deeply palmatifid and sericeo-pilose, stigmas (purple) cuneate 

 irregularly 3 — 4 lobed."- — Br. Fl. p. 400. Loud. Arh. Brit. iii. p. 



* [In this case, as in some others (see Ribes rubrum, p. 188, foot-note), the 

 author almost exclusively confines his elaborate description to that form of the 

 species which only he believes wild. — Edrs?^ 



f On this individual most of the leaves are nearly devoid of their usual hoari- 

 ness, but the extreme leaves on the twigs preserve it in a considerable degree, and 

 all present visible traces of their appropriate cottony covering in patches of vari- 

 able extent, like spots of mildew, on their under surface ; yet this deficiency is 

 imaccompanied by any change in the shape of the leaves, beyond the variatipns 

 in these organs incidental to the normal form. This state of the variety appears 

 to make a nearer approach than usual to P. tremula, to which it seems to be as 

 closely allied as to P. alba. It is doubtless the P. canescens fi. intermedia of He- 

 rat, Nouv. Fl. des Env. de Paris, p. 400, and which he suspects may be a hybrid 

 between that and P. tremula. See also Lejeune, Fl. de Spa. p. 260, who looks 

 upou it as more nearly allied to P. tremula, P. alba y. denudata ; Speuner, Fl. 

 Frib. (teste Gaudin), P. sericea ; Long. Peterm. Fl. Lips. Excurs. p. 277. 



P. alba and P. tremula are, it must be confessed, by no means clearly defined, 

 and, unless the difference in the number and form of the stigmas prove constant 

 in each, which they are said not to do, I know of no permanent marks of distinc- 

 tion. [For further remarks, both on this point and the distinctions between the 

 two varieties of P. alba, see Phytol. iii. pp. 841—846. — Edrs.~\ 



