488 OCTANDRIA. MONGGYNIA. Fopulus. 
P. ni'gra. Leaves deltoid, pointed,serrated, smooth on both sides. 
(E. Bot. 1910. E.)— Blackw. 548, and 248. 1 —Lonic. i. 26. 1 —Matth. 137 
— Cam. Epit. 66 — Park. 1410. 3— J.B. i. b. 155— Lob. Obs. 609. 2, and 
Ic. ii. 494. 1— Bod. 836. 1— Ger. Em. 1486. 2— Gars. 467. B. b. — Ger. 
1301. 2 —Trag. 1080. 
(A tall tree with a smooth bark; roots not throwing up young plants. 
Leaves dark green, less serrated towards the base than the apex. Ger - 
men ovate. Grev. E.) Leaves without any glands at the base, but the 
serratures glandular on the inner side. Stamens as many again as in 
P. tremula. Linn. Stamens sixteen. Leers. Leaf-stalks yellowish. 
Black Poplar. (Irish: Crann na crih. Welsh: Aethnen ddu. E.) 
Near rivers and wet shady places, in woods, plantations, &c. 
T. March.* 
* This tree loves a moist black soil, grows rapidly, and bears cropping. The wood is 
not apt to splinter. The bark, being light like cork, serves to support the nets of fishermen. 
The red substances like berries upon the leaf-stalks, a9 large as a cherry, gibbous on one 
side, and gaping on the other, are occasioned by an insect called Aphis bursaries, (which, with 
its brood, inhabits these angular utriculi. E.) Horses, cows, sheep, and goats browse upon 
the Black Poplar. (The inner bark is used by the Kamschatkadales as a material for bread; 
the roots have been observed to dissolve into a gelatinous substance, and to be coated over 
with a tubular crustaceous spar, called by naturalists osteocolla , formerly imagined to pro¬ 
mote the callus of fractured bones. In the Wonders of the Vegetable Kingdom ” we 
find it correctly remarked, “that the seed of the Black Poplar is one of those peculiarly 
adapted for dispersion, and is carried through the air by the assistance of a spherical body, 
similar to a little bullet, having a iong tail affixed to it, from the extremity of which 
descends obliquely an appendage of considerable length. When detached from the parent 
tree, the wind carries it away, spinning round and round. In this manner it sometimes 
proceeds to a considerable distance, and if by accident it falls into the water, the appendage 
sinks about an inch, serving as ballast to the tail and little leaf; which, when brought into 
a vertical position, answers the purpose of a mast and sail.” 
“ Arise, ye winds, ’tis now your time to blow, 
And aid the work of nature : On your wings 
The pregnant seeds conveyed shall plant a race 
Far from their native soil.” 
The Dlack Poplar is said to attain to a stately size on the banks of the ancient Eridanus, 
and there perpetually to distil its amber tears—“ Inde fluunt lachrymae.” Henoe has this 
tree been usually identified with the Heliades, the “ sprouting daughters of the Sun,” who, 
while inconsolable for the hapless fate of Phaeton, were, (on the highest classical autho¬ 
rity), metamorphosed into trees, but of what particular kind, is not so obvious; though, 
were we to indulge conjecture in the spirit of modern gallantry, we should be inclined 
rather to favour the pretensions of that species so felicitously expressive of female elegance, 
“ As tall and as straight as the Poplar tree,” 
which also flourishes beside the Po, and indeed derives its cognomen from that country. 
But leaving such matters to the versed in classic lore, we descend to facts indisputable. 
At Bury St. Edmund’s grows a Black Poplar rivalling even those of Italy, fit emblem of a 
“ nymph transformed,” even Phaethusa herself, which, as represented in Strutt, measures 
ninety feet in height, fifteen feet girth, and contains 551 feet of solid timber. The boards 
from such trees afford durable and neat looking floors for rooms, though, from their soft 
nature, too susceptible of external impressions. Brooms are made of the twigs, and in 
some places sheep are fed upon the dried leaves in winter. Paper has been manufactured 
from the cottony down of the seeds. In Flanders a prodigious quantity of clogs are made 
from Poplar wood, to supply all Holland. 
Aquatic trees are generally among the first to relinquish their leafy honours, and that 
too without contributing in any very obvious degree to the brilliant effect of the 
