POPLAR TREE. 



POPULUS. 



SAUCINEiE. DIOECIA OCTANDRIA. 



French, peuplier ; Italian, pioppo. 



The White Poplar, Populus alba^ in Italian, Gattico, 

 grows very tall, with a straight trunk, and a smooth pale 

 bark ; the leaves are of a dead green above, but under- 

 neath white and downy ; they are about three inches 

 long, on a footstalk of about an inch, flattened, and 

 grooved on each side. 



It is a native of Europe, from Sweden to Italy, of 

 Siberia and Barbary ; it grows in woods and hedges, 

 and takes delight in the neighbourhoods of rivers and 

 brooks. There is a variety of this, called the Great 

 White Poplar, or Abele tree, of which the leaves are 

 nearly twice the size, and are less round in figure ; the 

 young shoots are of a paler colour, and its growth is 

 much quicker. The finest of these trees are natives of 

 Holland and Flanders, and are called by some the Dutch 

 Beech. 



Hartlib, in his Compleat Husbandman (1659), says 

 that, some years ago, ten thousand Abeles were brought 

 from Flanders at one time, and transplanted into several 

 English counties. " This timber," &ays he, " is incom- 

 parable for all sorts of wooden vessels, especially trays, 



