SALICACEAE 
Aspen 
Populus tremuloides Michx, 
HABIT.—A small, slender tree generally 35-45 feet high, 
with a trunk diameter of 8-15 inches; forming a loose, rounded 
crown of slender branches. 
LEAVES.—Alternate, simple, 114-214 inches long and broad; 
broadly ovate to suborbicular; finely serrate; thin and firm; 
lustrous,dark green above, dull and pale beneath; petioles slender, 
laterally compressed. Tremulous with the slightest breeze. 
FLOWERS.—April, before the leaves; dioecious; the stam- 
inate catkins 114-3 inches long, the pistillate at first about the 
same length, gradually elongating; calyx 0; corolla 0; stamens 
6-12; stigmas 2, 2-lobed, red. 
‘RUIT.—May-June; 2-valved, oblong-cylindrical, short- 
pedicelled capsules 14 inch long; seeds light brown, white-hairy. 
WINTER-BUDS.—Terminal bud about 1% inch long, nar- 
row-conical, acute, red-brown, lustrous; lateral buds often 
appressed. 
BARK.—Twigs very lustrous, red-brown, becoming grayish 
and roughened by the elevated leaf-scars; thin, yellowish or 
greenish and smooth on the trunk, often roughened with darker, 
horizontal bands or wart-like excrescences, becoming thick and 
fissured, almost black at the base of old trunks. 
WOOD.—Light, soft, weak, close-grained, not durable, light 
brown, with thin, whitish sapwood. : 
DISTRIBUTION.—Common throughout the state, but most 
abundant in the Upper Peninsula. 
HABITAT.—Prefers moist, sandy soil and gravelly ‘hill- 
sides. 
NOTES.—One of the first trees to cover burned-over lands. 
Grows rapidly. Usually short-lived. Propagated from seed or 
cuttings. 
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