Trees, Shrubs and Vines 



and is now, a stupendous botanical and zoological the- 

 atre of development as well, which adds immensely to 

 the dignity and significance of the long and mysterious 

 career of our globe. 



One trait of the poplar family, seen in varying de- 

 gree in all its species, is a slender, tapering form not 

 quite like that of any other group. The Lombardy 

 poplar carries it to the extreme, but we find it in cot- 

 tonwood and aspen in a modified way. Far as the eye 

 can see a balsam poplar this special feature is recog- 

 nizable. The whole group is like a family of children 

 having a common peculiarity of figure. The bark, too, 

 is tell - tale, and the smooth, leathery leaf. How 

 marvellous that somewhere in the tiny seed of each of 

 these species is wrapped an indestructible potency that 

 moulds the seedling, sapling, and the ever-growing tree 

 into rigid conformity to the poplar idea, yet with such 

 liberty of variation as makes not only the species to dif- 

 fer, but every tree different from every other in the same 

 species. In that microscopic embryo resides the forma- 

 tive principle of the plant's whole career, be it of se- 

 quoia that lives a thousand years, or of the cypress vine 

 that dies in six months, laying strong hand on every 

 branch, guiding each twig, determining the unfolding 

 of leaf, the fashion of flower and fruit, and appointing 

 its stature; even its sentence of death is somewhere 

 written in the tiny germ. We look with wonder and 

 awe upon some of the mighty developments of plant 

 life ; we may well bend in reverence before that tiny 

 miracle of nature, a seed. 



Of all the poplars the most picturesque is certainly 

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