Part 43

Wood: Hard and strong.

Uses: Furniture, interior finishing. Sometimes planted as an ornamental because of its rapid growth and unusual bark.

Habitat: Bottomlands, along streams, around lakes and ponds.

Range: Maine across southern Wisconsin to eastern Nebraska, south to eastern Texas, east to northern Florida.

Distinguishing Features: The large palmately lobed leaves and the brown and gray mottled bark readily distinguish this tree.

WHITE POPLAR Populus alba L.

Other Names: Silver-leaved Poplar; Abele.

Growth Form: Moderate tree to 50 feet tall; trunk diameter up to 2 feet; crown broadly rounded but often irregular.

Bark: Grayish to whitish, at first smooth, later becoming deeply fissured and very dark gray to nearly black.

Twigs: Greenish-gray, white-hairy at least when young; leaf scars alternate, crescent-shaped, each with 3 bundle traces.

Buds: Ovoid, pointed, hairy, up to ⅛ inch long.

Leaves: Alternate, simple; blades usually ovate, with a few broad teeth along the edges, bluntly pointed at the tip, cut straight across or a little heart-shaped at the base, up to 4 inches long, dark green on the upper surface, silvery-hairy or white-wooly on the lower surface; leafstalks up to 3 inches long, densely hairy, not flat.

Flowers: Staminate and pistillate borne on separate trees, crowded together in catkins, appearing when the leaves unfold.

Fruit: Often curved, flask-shaped capsules, greenish, hairy, up to ¼ inch long, containing many seeds with cottony hairs attached.

Wood: Light weight, soft.

Use: Grown as an ornamental because of its silvery leaves.

Habitat: Along roads, around old homesteads.

Range: Native of Europe and Asia; frequently planted and escaped from cultivation in the United States.

Distinguishing Features: The leaves, with their silvery or white-wooly under-surface and their few broad teeth, provided the best means of identifying this tree.

COTTONWOOD Populus deltoides Marsh.

Growth Form: Large rapidly growing tree up to 100 feet tall; trunk diameter up to eight feet; crown spreading or broadly rounded, with some drooping branches. The largest tree in Illinois, in Grundy County, is a Cottonwood measuring twenty-eight feet six inches in circumference.

Bark: Smooth and gray when young, becoming furrowed at maturity.

Twigs: Yellow-green, gray, or tan, smooth, moderately stout, with numerous pale “dots”; leaf scars alternate, triangular, with 3 large bundle traces.

Buds: Lance-shaped, long-pointed, up to ½ inch long, sticky, chestnut-colored.

Leaves: Alternate, simple; blades to 5 inches long and often nearly as broad, triangular, abruptly pointed at the tip, cut straight across or even slightly heart-shaped at the base, with coarse rounded teeth along the edges, green, smooth, and shiny on the upper surface, paler on the lower surface; leafstalks to 4 inches long, smooth, often yellow, flat.

Flowers: Staminate and pistillate borne on separate trees, the staminate crowded in rather thick, reddish catkins, the pistillate crowded in narrower, greenish-yellow catkins, both sexes appearing before the leaves begin to unfold.

Fruit: Elliptic, greenish-brown capsules up to ¼ inch long, grouped in elongated clusters, containing numerous seeds with cottony hairs attached.

Wood: Light weight, soft, readily warping.