1784 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 



my experience very rare, the- only ones I have seen being two rather stunted 

 specimens of considerable age, which grow on my land by the side of a watercourse 

 in a meadow on Upcot Farm, near Withington, Gloucestershire. There are male 

 specimens close to them, and in some seasons fertile seed is produced, from which, 

 in 1907, a few seedlings ^ were raised by Miss F. Woolward. Two of these were 

 planted at Colesborne, but one was weakly from the first and the other was killed 

 by a fungoid disease soon after I planted it out. I have never seen a natural seedling 

 of this or of the white poplar in England. 



Remarkable Trees 



The finest grey poplars that we have seen are in a group called the Grove in 

 the park at Longleat. Mitchell,^ writing in 1827, mentions these as being then 

 100 ft. high, with trunks 3 to 4 ft. in diameter, and 40 to 60 ft. of clear bole. In 

 Trans. Eng. Arbor. Soc. v. 391 (1903), an illustration of one of these trees from a 

 photograph by A. C. Forbes was given. He calls it an abele poplar, and gives the 

 measurement of the largest as 120 ft. by 15 ft. 3 in., and the cubic contents 450 ft. 

 Ten trees in this grove, all with straight clean boles of 50 to 80 ft., then averaged 

 115 ft. by 13 ft, with an average cubic content of 240 ft. When I last visited Long- 

 leat in 1909 I found the majority of them still healthy, and measured one which 

 was 125 ft. by 11 ft. 



There are several very fine trees at Colesborne, one of which (Plate 382) 

 has two stems rising from the base, and measuring 115 ft. by 10 ft. and 10 ft. 3 in. 

 respectively. These trees sucker freely, and some young trees grown from 

 the suckers, which have been pruned but not transplanted, are growing very fast 

 — about 40 ft. in ten years. 



In a field about a mile from Overbury Court, near Tewkesbury, Mr. F. R. S. 

 Balfour discovered a tree 86 ft. high, with a trunk 18 ft. long by 18 ft. 10 in. in girth 

 and with very large spreading branches. At Kingston Lacy, Dorsetshire, a tree with 

 many suckers round it measured, in 1906, 118 ft. by 13 ft. 9 in. At Strathfieldsaye 

 I measured in 1905 a tree 108 ft. by 16 ft, which had a sucker coming up 80 yards 

 from its base. In the park at Syon House there is a well-shaped tree loi ft. by 12 

 ft. 5 in.^ In the home park of Windsor Castle there is a short avenue of grey poplars 

 close to the bank of the Thames, below Victoria Bridge. Mr. Mackellar informs us 

 that these were planted between 1840 and 1850, and measured in January, 19 13, 90 

 to 100 ft in height and 9 to 12 ft in girth. At Gilbert White's old home at Sel- 

 borne, the tallest tree is a grey poplar, which Mr. H. B. Watt* measured in 191 2 as 

 109 ft. high by 9 ft. 5 in. in girth. At Youngsbury, Ware, Hertford, a tree measured 

 95 ft by 10 ft. 4 in. in 191 1. 



In Wales I have seen none of any great size ; and I have not heard of any 

 remarkable ones in the eastern or northern counties. 



In Scotland, where the tree is common, Mr. J. Renwick^ tells us of two very 



1 Joum. Bot. xlv. 417, t. 487 (1907). 2 Dendrologia, 51 (1827). 3 a. B. Jackson, Cat. Trees Syon, 22 (1910). 



* Selbome Magazine, xxiii. 122 (1912). ' Glasgow Naturalist, iii. 119, pi. ii. (1911). 



