520 
able height, there being the least difference in the girt of this tree, for several yards upwards, of any 
sort of tree whatsoever. The Hon. Paul Dudley, Esq. in a letter to the Royal Society, mentions one 
of these trees, which he observed in New England, whose girt was nine yards, and held its bigness a 
great way up, which tree, when cut down, made twenty-two cords of wood. He also says, in the 
same letter, that he had propagated many of these trees by cutting off sticks of five or six feet long, 
and setting them a foot deep into the ground in the spring of the year, when the season was wet, 
and that they always thrive best in a moist soil. 
In the winter screen the seed-beds with pea-straw, rotten tanner’s bark, or some other light cover¬ 
ing, that can easily be removed in mild weather. In the spring, before the seeds vegetate, rake the 
beds gently over with a short-toothed rake, sifting a little fresh rich mould on them, and in dry wea¬ 
ther during summer let them be watered. The following autumn, the beds having been made quite 
clean, put a little more good mould about the plants; after which they will require no farther trouble, 
but keeping them clean, till they have had another season’s growth, when they may be removed into 
the nursery in spring:* in rows one yard asunder, and eighteen inches distance in the rows. Though 
many of the seeds will come up the first spring; yet the general crop must not be expected till the 
second. 
Genus 31. Populus. Poplar . Glass XXII. Dioecia. 
Class IV. Tetrandria. 
Species 1 . White Poplar . (Populus Alba.) 
The White Poplar grows very tall, with a straight trunk, covered with a smooth whitish bark. 
Leaves smooth, blackish green above, but having a thick white cotton underneath; they are about 
three inches long, on petioles an inch in length, flatted and grooved on each side: in young trees the 
leaves are roundish, but in adult ones angular, divided into three, five or seven lobes; they are 
without glands, either at the base or on the serratures. The flowers are exactly similar to those 
of P. tremida .-j- 
Native of Europe, from Sweden to Italy, also of Siberia and Rarbary: in woods, hedges, and 
near rivers and brooks. 
The leaves of the Great White Poplar, or Abele-tree, are large, and divided into three, four, or 
five lobes, which are indented on their edges; they are of a very dark colour on their upper side, and 
very white and downy on their under, standing upon foot-stalks which are about an inch long. The 
young branches of this tree have a purple bark, and are covered with a white down, but the bark of 
the stem and older branches is grey. In the beginning of April the male flowers or katkins appear, 
which are cylindrical, scaly, and three inches long, and about a week after come out the female 
flowers or katkins, which have no stamina like those of the male. Soon after come out, the male 
katkins fall off, and in'five or six weeks after, the female flowers will have ripe seeds inclosed in 
a hairy covering, when the katkins will drop, and the seeds will be wafted by the winds to a great 
distance. 
The leaves of the common White Poplar are rounder, and not much above half the size of those 
of the Abele; the shoots of the Abele are paler, the katkins are larger, and the down of the seeds is 
whiter and longer. 
* Boutcher. 
T Linnaeus, Ray, Lightf. Withering. 
