Populus ^79^ 



POPULUS TREMULOIDES, American Aspen 



Populus tremuloides, Michaux, Fl. Bor. Amer. ii. 243 (1803) ; Sargent, Silva N. Amer. ix. 158, t. 487 



(1896), and Trees N. Amer. 154 (1905); Schneider, Laubholzkunde, i. 19 (1904); Dode, in 



Mem. Soc. Hist. Nat. Autun, xviii. 33 (1905). 

 Populus trepida, Willdenow, Sp. PL ii. 803 (1805); Loudon, Arb. et Frut. Brit. iii. 1649 (1838). 

 Populus tremuliformis, Emerson, Trees Massachusetts, 243 (1846). 

 Populus atheniensis} Ludwig, Neue Wilde Baumz. 35 (1783), ex Koch, Dendrologie, ii. 486 (1872); 



Koehne, Deut. Dend. 80 (1893). 

 Populus graca^ Loudon, Arb. et Frut. Brit. iii. 1651 (1838) (not Aiton) ; Lauche, Deut. Dend. 



316 (1883). 



A tree, attaining in America 100 ft. in height and 9 ft. in girth. Bark like that 

 of P. tremula. Young branchlets slender, glabrous, shining reddish brown, with 

 orange lenticels. Buds ovoid, sharp-pointed, shining brownish, slightly viscid, with 

 glabrous scales. Leaves (Plate 408, Fig. 5) ovate to nearly orbicular, \\ to 2 in. 

 in diameter, thin in texture ; truncate, rounded or cuneate at the base ; shortly 

 cuspidate at the apex ; glabrous on both surfaces, pale beneath ; margin with a narrow 

 translucent border, ciliate especially on the leaves of the short shoots, finely glandular- 

 serrate ; pseudo-three- to five-palminerved at the base, where the glands in occurrence 

 and appearance are like those of P. tremula ; petiole slender, glabrous, laterally 

 compressed, variable in length, often as long as the blade. Leaves on sucker shoots, 

 similar to those of P. tremula, but glabrous on both surfaces, with ciliated margins. 



Flowers scarcely distinguishable from those of P. tremula, but with more slender 

 catkins, smaller in all the parts of the flowers ; disc of the pistillate flower crenate. 



1 . Var. pendula. A weeping form, with pendulous branches, always grafted. 

 This is generally known as the Parasol de St. Julien, which is said ^ to have 



been first propagated by Messrs. Baltet, who found in 1865, on the bank of a canal at 

 St. Julien, near Troyes, a tree with weeping branches, which they crown-grafted on 

 the white poplar, and considered to be a weeping form of P. tremula. 



It is said by Koch^ to have been much more common in commerce in 1872 than 

 the weeping variety of the common aspen, and it is possible that the preceding history 

 is applicable rather to a weeping variety of P. tremula. 



2. P. cercidiphylla, Britton, N. Amer. Trees, 180 (1908), seems to be a form 

 with small entire or undulate leaves, which was found in Wyoming by Dr. C. C. 

 Curtis in 1900. (A. H.) 



1 Loudon describes this poplar under both the names P. trepida and P. graca, and states in Card. Mag. 1840, p. 231, 

 and Trees and Shrubs, 823 (1842), that P. graca was "named after the village called Athens, on the banks of the Mississippi, 

 where the tree grows abundantly." P. atheniensis is said by Koehne to derive its name from the town of Athens in New 

 York State, whence it was introduced. P. graca, Aiton, Hort. Kew. iii. 407 (1789), was insufSciently described, and said to be 

 a native of the Greek archipelago. 



* Cayeux, in The Garden, 1886, p. 2. The pendulous variety of P. tremuloides is called Parasol de St. Julien, in 

 Simon-Louis's catalogue, 1899-1900, and appears to be now always sold in France under this name. Spath, Catalogue, 

 No. 57, p. 61 (1883), identifies the Parasol de St. Julien with P. canescens perulula; and the latter name, now no longer 

 employed, would seem to show that Spath's tree was rather a weeping P. tremula than a pendulous form of P. tremuloides. 



» Dendrologie, ii. pt. i. 487 (1872). 



