120 
VIRGINIAN POPLAR. 
proper to describe it because it may possibly be indigenous to some part of 
the United States which we have not visited, and because, on account of 
its rapid growth, it deserves the attention of the Americans. It has been 
cultivated in Europe for many years, and is universally considered as a 
native of North America. It is called Virginian Poplar and Swiss Poplar ; 
the last of which denominations is owing only to its being abundantly mul- 
tiplied in Switzerland. 
The Virginian or Swiss Poplar is 60 or 70 feet high with a proportional 
diameter. Its trunk is cylindrical, and not sulcated like that of the aged 
Lombardy Poplar, and the bark upon old stocks is blackish. The leaves 
are nearly as long as they are broad, slightly heart-shaped, compressed 
towards the summit, obtusely denticulated and borne by long petioles. On 
large trees their mean length is from 2% to 3 inches, but they vary in size, 
being twice as large on the lower limbs, and on young stocks grow- 
ing in moist places. On trees equally vigorous and nourished by the same 
soil, the leaves of this species are observed to be only half as large as those 
of the Cotton Wood and Carolinian Poplar. 
In France we have only the male of this Poplar, which is propagated by 
slips. On the young Virginian Poplar, as on the Cotton Wood and Caroli- 
nian Poplars, the annual shoots are angular, and this form subsists during 
the second and third years on vigorous stocks in a humid soil : on trees 
which are already 20 or 30 feet high and which grow on dry and elevated 
lands, the young branches are perfectly round, but in the other species 
they always retain the angular shape during several years. 
As the Swdss Poplar has been and is still confounded with the Cotton 
Wood, I shall succinctly state the characters which distinguish them, 
according to the observations of M. De Foucault, a Director of the Impe- 
rial Administration of the Waters and Forests, eminently distinguished by 
his knowledge of botany applied to this branch of economy. He remarks 
that the leaves of the Virginian Poplar are much smaller and less distinctly 
heart-shaped ; the young shoots are smaller and less angular, and on high 
grounds those of the third year are even cylindrical : the limbs also diverge 
less wddely from the trunk. M. De Foucault adds that the wood of the 
Swiss Poplar is softer than that of the Cotton Wood, but that its growth is 
more rapid aud that it prospers in a less humid soil. This last considera- 
tion explains the profusion with which it is multiplied throughout France, 
where it is found to yield a more speedy and more abundant product than 
the Lombardy Poplar. 
PLATE XCVI. 
Fig. 2, Virginian or Swiss Foplar. 
