128 SYLVA FLORIFERA. 



Notwithstanding that we might avail our- 

 selves of the authority of the British Botanist, 

 and the able compiler of the Hortus Kewensis, 

 for claiming both the white and the black 

 poplars as natives of this country ; yet, from 

 our own observations, and the remarks of our 

 oldest writers on the subject, we do not feel 

 justified in pronouncing both of them abori- 

 ginals of our soil. Turner says, in 1568, " As 

 touching the whyte asp, I remembre not that 

 euer I saw it in any place of England. But I 

 haue sene it in great plenty e in Italy, by the 

 ryuer sede of Padus ; where, as it is called 

 albera, and in hyghe Germany by the reuer 

 syde, where as it is called saurbaum. If it be 

 found in England, it may be called a whyte 

 asp, or a whyte popler." Gerard, who wrote 

 about thirty years after Turner, says, " The 

 white poplar groweth not very common in 

 England, but in some places heere and there 

 a tree : I found many both small and great 

 growing in a lowe medow turning vp a lane 

 at the further end of a village called Black- 

 wall, from London ; and in Essex at a place 

 called Ouenden, and in diuers other places." 

 We do not find any old English name for 

 these trees, as the word poplar is as evidently 

 from the Latin populus, or the French peuplier, 

 as the name of abele is from the low Dutch 



