DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 
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people : some ingenious authors have still further justified 
the propriety of the name, by adding, that its trembling leaves 
are like the populace , always in motion. 
The poplars are light-wooded, rapid-growing trees ; many 
of them of huge size, and all with pointed, heart-shaped 
leaves. The tassel-like catkins, or male blossoms, of a red or 
brownish hue, appear early in the spring. Some of the 
American kinds, as the Balsam and Balm of Gilead poplars, 
have their buds enveloped in a fragrant gum ; others, as the 
Silver poplar, or Abele, are remarkable for the snowy white- 
ness of the under side of the foliage ; and the Lombardy 
poplar, which 
“ Shoots up its spire, and shakes its leaves in the sun,” 
Proctor. 
for its remarkably conical or spire-like manner of growth. 
The leaves of all the species, being suspended upon long and 
slender footstalks, are easily put in motion by the wind. 
This, however, is peculiarly the case with the aspen, the 
leaves of which may often be seen trembling in the slightest 
breeze, when the foliage of the surrounding trees is motion, 
less. There is a popular legend in Scotland respecting this 
tree, which runs thus : 
“ Far off in the Highland wilds ’tis said, 
(But truth now laughs at fancy’s lore,) 
That of this tree the cross was made, 
Which erst the Lord of Glory bore ; 
And of that deed its leaves confess, 
E’er since, a troubled consciousness.” 
In Landscape Gardening the poplar is not highly esteemed ; 
but it is a valuable tree when judiciously employed, and 
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