see it clearly
Poplar Tree
Most of the broad-leaved deciduous trees have rounded contours, whilst some conifers, at least when young, present a conical, or rather pyramidal, outline. The Lombardy Poplar stands almost alone in the remarkably erect, or "fastigiate," habit of growth of its branches, to which it owes its specific name fastigiata. True, the boughs of the Mount Atlas cedar have an upward slope, whilst those of the Florence-Court, or Irish, variety of the yew have a still fuller right to the description of "fastigiate"; but neither of these needle-leaved trees rise above their fellows in such a narrow, pointed column as does the Lombardy Poplar.
The two genera, Populus, the Poplars, and Salix, the Willows, constitute by themselves the Natural Order Salicacea, all the members of which are trees with alternate leaves, furnished with the appendages known as "stipules," and with their flowers in conspicuous catkins, the two sexes being on different plants, or "dioecious," and the "perianth"--the calyx and corolla, that is, of an ordinary flower--being replaced by simple scales. These scales, however, being single--i.e., there being but one to each flower--they are probably really rather of the nature of bracts; and the perianth, altogether absent in willows, is probably represented in the Poplars by a little one-sided, cup-shaped body, which has, however, been sometimes called a "disk." In both genera the female flower consists of a solitary one-chambered ovary, containing many ovules. The willows have usually narrow leaves, erect catkins, and bracteal scales which, though hairy, are not notched; the Poplars, on the other hand, have broad leaves, drooping catkins, and scales slashed into several lobes. Both male and female flowers are, in the latter group, enclosed in the little cup already mentioned, which springs from the axel of the scale.
Possibly the mere difference in quantity of the first syllables of the two Latin words, populus, the people, and populus, a poplar tree, may hide a real identity of etymology. The "tall Poplars," however, alluded to in the lyrics of Horace, as the supports round which the vines were twined, were not of the variety now known as the Lombardy Poplar. This last form, which is now known in France as "Peuplier d'Italie," though there are several other Italian species, does not seem to have been known in Italy even in the time of Pliny, eighty years after the death of Horace. The genus is almost confined to the north temperate zone; a few extend a little farther north, whilst within their area of distribution they occur very generally, especially in moist ground and along the banks of rivers.
Opinions differ as to the limits of the species in this small genus; but, besides various American forms now common in cultivation, throughout Europe, five readily distinguishable types--viz., the Abele, or White Poplar (Populus alba), the Grey Poplar (P. canescens), the Aspen (P. tremula), the Black Poplar (P. nigra), and the Lombardy Poplar (P. fastigiata). Of these, the two first should, perhaps, be classed as subspecies of one species, and the two last-named, neither of which is truly indigenous, should almost certainly be so treated. Perhaps the best point of difference is the stigma; but the lover of trees, who may be but a tyro in botany, will be glad of other means of recognizing the objects of his attention. The three first forms agree in having downy shoots, dense female catkins, bracteal scales fringed with hairs, and stamens varying in number from four to twelve in each male floret. They have, therefore, been grouped together in a section known by the name Leuce, the Greek appellation of the White Poplar. The two last, on the other hand, have their young shoots smooth, their female catkins lax, their scales almost smooth, and their stamens more than twelve in number; and they have been accordingly united in the section named Aigeiros--a name formerly applied to the Black Poplar. It will, perhaps, be clearer to give these characters, and those distinguishing each species, in a tabular form.
- LEUCE.--Shoots downy; female catkins dense; scales ciliate; stamens 4--12.
- -- alba, White Poplar, or Abele: Leaves on the suckers lobed, those on the branches roundly heart-shaped, slightly lobed; white and cottony on the under surface; stigmas two, bifid, linear, cross-like, yellow.
- -- canescens, Grey Poplar: Leaves on the suckers angled and toothed, those on the branches roundly heart-shaped, hoary or smooth on the under surface; stigmas two, 3- or 4-lobed, wedge-shaped, purple; buds downy.
- -- tremula, Aspen: Leaves on very long stalks, those on the suckers heart-shaped, pointed, not toothed, those on the branches rounded, with incurved teeth, silky or smooth on the under surface; stigmas two, bifid, erect; buds slightly viscid.
- AIGEIROS.--Shoots smooth; female catkins lax; scales nearly smooth; stamens 12--20.
- -- nigra, Black Poplar: Leaves on long stalks, when young, rhombic in form, silky on the under surface, and ciliate; when old, more rounded, finely-toothed, smooth; stigmas two, roundish, 2-lobed; buds viscid; no suckers.
- -- fastigiata, Lombardy Poplar: Differs from the last mainly in its erect, or "fastigiate," mode of branching, and in having suckers.
The Poplars form one of the exceptions to the rule--often stated without qualification in botanical text-books--that roots do not produce leaves or leafy shoots. This characteristic is most obvious when one of these trees has been felled, for then all the vitality that before spread from the roots into the main stem is diverted into the far-reaching lateral roots, and a small forest of suckers springs up, often at a distance of many yards from the parent tree. These are true root-suckers, and not merely ascending subterranean branches, like those of the rose; and, as has been seen in the table just given, the leaves on these suckers are often different in form from those on the branches of the tree.
Though a merely "fastigiate" habit is not generally considered a character of specific importance, the presence of these suckers in the Lombardy Poplar is an important distinction between it and the Black Poplar, with which botanists generally unite it. The absence of the gray hairiness common on the leaves of other species, which has earned for its allied form the inappropriate name of "Black," is equally characteristic of the Lombardy Poplar.
This fastigiate variety is probably a native of the mountains of Western or Northern Asia, perhaps of Persia. It has been common in that country, and in Kashmir and the Punjaub, from very early times, and is often planted along the roadsides in those distant lands, as it is in France, its somewhat scanty shade-producing powers being there of more importance than they are with us. Introduced from these countries into Southern Europe, the tree derives its popular names, both in France and in England, from its abundance along the banks of the Po and the other rivers of Lombardy, where at the present day it grows readily from self-sown seed, which it will not do in England. Considering that it was only introduced into France in 1749, and into England in 1758, it is interesting to note that William Turner, writing two hundred years before, in his "Names of Herbes" (1548), says of the genus:--
"Populus is of two kyndes, the fyrste kynde is called in greeke Leuce, in Latin Populus alba, in englishe whyte Poplar, or whyte Esptree, in duch wisz sarbach. Thys kynde is commune about the bankes of the floude Padus [the Po]. The seconde kynde is called in Greeke Argeiros, in englishe alone a popler, or an Asp tree, or a blacke popler."
Not many years before his "Names of Herbes" was published, Turner traveled in Italy, and may then have seen the true Lombardy Poplar; but his account does not show any more discrimination between the species than was suggested to him by the existence of two names in both the Greek and the English languages.
Like many quick-growing, spongy-timbered trees, the Lombardy Poplar seems not to be by any means a long-lived tree; so that, though the artistic value of
"The Poplars in long order due"
may have been instinctively recognized at once, it is very doubtful whether any specimens are still in existence that date from the first few years of the introduction of the species into England. A hundred years, in fact, would seem to be a fair limit to state as that of the duration of life of this species, at least in our climate.
A line of Poplars may have a somewhat formal effect if we look at them apart from the landscape, in a near or confined view. They then appear simply as a stiff row of from three to a dozen trees, incongruous in outline with those around them, and suggesting nothing so much as those red-stemmed green-chip marvels of the German toy of our youth. The beauty of the Lombardy Poplar is mainly one of landscape effect, its tall, erect growth acting as a relief or foil to the rounded outlines of other trees, and contrasting admirably with the horizontal lines of the water by the side of which it is so often seen. Whilst in Lombardy and France it is commonly planted as a hedge in lines, which, from their length, are decidedly monotonous, with us it occurs commonly in shorter lines, acting as a screen, or merely as an ornamental break in the landscape. Properly it should never stand alone, and should always be so placed that the row of vertical green plumes may serve, as has been suggested, to break, or to contrast with, some horizontal line--a river bank, a road, an unsightly railway embankment, or the arches of a viaduct or aqueduct. Their suckers form an objection to their being planted near the lawn; but purely artistic considerations make it desirable that Poplars should be planted in a row at some distance from the house or other point from which they are to be viewed.
This variety is not, however, deficient in those more minute beauties that repay the student of trees. Though in our climate it is not a very common occurrence with this kind of Poplar that
"In the wind of windy March,
The catkins drop down,
Curly, caterpillar-like,
Curious green and brown;"and though consequently it does not often produce that profusion of bursting capsules disclosing masses of seeds imbedded in their tufts of silky white hair, that give to the group their American name of Cotton-wood, its beauties of foliage are not to be despised. At the end of April or the beginning of May, when most other trees are in full spring-tide verdure, the little triangular leaflets come forth, on their characteristically long leaf-stalks, in a charming variety of golden tints, now yellow, now brown, now russetred, glinting cheerfully in the young sunbeams before they decide on being a somewhat dull shade of green; and again in autumn, after most other trees are bare, these same leaves, which have survived the equinoctial gales of October, are often seen, bright with an almost spotlessly-clear lemon-yellow, or variegated, perchance, with a green clearer than any hue they have hitherto worn, in the fitful sunshine of St. Luke's summer, or of that autumnal after-glow that sometimes marks the latter half of the month.
From a narrowly utilitarian point of view there is not much to be urged on behalf of the Lombardy Poplar. The timber yielded by its tall, straight stem, that commonly reaches seventy or eighty feet, and may exceed a hundred feet in height, is soft and spongy, and, though it may prove valuable for paper-making, is at present, after much seasoning, used mainly for churns and coach-panels. In common with the rest of the group to which it belongs, the bark contains some bitter principles that render it of some little use in tanning, and give it some tonic and febrifuge qualities as a medicine.