Platanus 



lately admitted correspondence on the subject. The 

 guilt of the tree seems to be unproved. 



The inhabitants of Cos show a tree whose trunk 

 has a diameter of six yards, and they profess to 

 believe that it is old enough for Hippocrates to have 

 sat under it. 



Flower, April and May. 

 Italian name, Platano. 



POPULUS. 



^-^ Candida populus ' (Ec. ix. 41). 



' bicolor . . . populus' {Ae. viii. 276). 

 — -i populus in silvis pulcherrima ' (Ec. vii. 65). 

 ' populus Alcidae gratissima ' (lb. 61). 



Whether the abele or white poplar (Populus alba) 

 be a native or an importation from eastern Europe, 

 it was at any rate well established along the water- 

 courses and in the wet woods of Italy. The young 

 shoots are very white and cottony, and the leaves 

 are green above and white beneath. The tree is 

 sometimes nearly a hundred feet high. Its wood is 

 useful wherever lightness and whiteness are desired. 



Hercules, on his return from the lower world, 

 made himself a chaplet of poplar leaves, and Homer's 

 name of a%e/)ft)t? marks the tree as a denizen of 

 Hades. 



Both the black poplar and the aspen must have 

 been known to Virgil, but he makes no direct men- 

 tion of either. It is from the former that bees get 

 much ' fucus,' the rosinous substance used for pro- 

 polis {Ge. iv. 39). 



105 



