AMERICAN ASPEN'. 145 



more apt to take for granted as manifestly apparent; for 

 thus they earnestly renew their life, and do continually go 

 to enliven the groves, and the hearts of all in sympathy 

 with them, and their likeness. This ever restless, not to say 

 unstable motion, is common to all the poplars, and some of 

 the populars — with the birches — but in none is it so charac- 

 teristic, as in this tremuliformu. we /have not alluded to the 

 tiny infantile, silky side stipules which fall off; but the 

 flowers and fruit are more important. The male catkin- 

 tassels are two inches or more long, with deep crimson sta- 

 mens in clusters on notched scales fringed with hairs. The 

 female fertile tassels are also very hairy, studded with crim- 

 son stigmas conspicuously prominent from their own pret- 

 tily curved or pending tags, becoming elongated as they 

 ripen, in May, to three or four inches. 



The wood is soft light and white, fine grained, and sand- 

 papers and burnishes well, but quickly perishes on exposure 

 to weather. Is deficient in strength, especially in lateral 

 strain, but is nevertheless applicable to many uses. Such 

 woods that are so neat, never splinter, seldom season-crack, 

 and though laterally weak, do not usually split with nails, 

 etc., are apt to be too flippantly scandalized. It must be 

 borne in mind, that the caprices of fashion, so often depre- 

 cated, still rule the world, and the novel demands of the 

 arts, and constantly increasing inventions, may at any 

 moment, in a thousand ways, cause these to spring into 

 notoriety, and transiently outstrip the more durable in 

 demand, as in quality. This vacillation of value may be as 

 unreasonable as some of the fashionable people that have 

 most use for the article, or the demand prove as fickle as the 

 foliage, or those whom the masculine poets have wantonly 

 likened thereunto. It is already reported to be ground into 

 pulp for paper for casks and a thousand uses, and by the 

 discovery of a cheap vitreous or lackered varnish, etc., our 

 old current ideas of the value of these soft white and light 

 woods in general, might entirely vanish away. The bitter 

 bark is a valuable tonic, like quinine; but the balsamic 

 spring buds as a tea, with a little borax the size of a pea, 

 restores the enfeebled languid state and capricious appetites 

 of Spring in a wonderful degree. 



Found throughout California and the xioast generally, 

 abounds mostly at about six thousand feet to ten thousand, 

 of Sierras and corresponding thermals. 



