Part 16

=Inflorescence.=--April. Sterile 3-4 inches long, fertile at first about the same length, gradually elongating, loosely flowered; bracts irregularly and rather narrowly cut-toothed, each bract subtending a cup-shaped disk; stamens numerous; anthers red: ovary short-stalked; stigmas two, 2-lobed, large, wavy-margined.

=Fruit.=--Fruiting catkins drooping, 4-6 inches long: capsules ovoid, acute, longer than the pedicels, green: seeds numerous, hairy.

=Horticultural Value.=--Hardy throughout New England; grows in all excepting very wet soils, in full sun or light shade, and in exposed situations; of rapid growth, but subject to the attacks of borers, which kill the branches and make the head unsightly; also spreads from the roots, and therefore not desirable for ornamental plantations; most useful in the formation of shelter-belts; readily transplanted but not common in nurseries. Propagated from cuttings.

1. Branch with sterile flowers. 2. Sterile flower, back view. 3. Sterile flower, side view. 4. Scales of sterile flower. 5. Branch with fertile catkins. 6. Fertile flower. 7. Fruiting catkins, mature. 8. Branch with mature leaves.

=Populus candicans, Ait.=

Populus balsamifera, var. candicans, Gray.

BALM OF GILEAD.

=Habitat and Range.=--In a great variety of soils; usually in cultivated or pasture lands in the vicinity of dwellings; infrequently found in a wild state. The original site of this tree has not been definitely agreed upon. Professor L. H. Bailey reports that it is indigenous in Michigan, and northern collectors find both sexes in New Hampshire and Vermont; while in central and southern New England the staminate tree is rarely if ever seen, and the pistillate flowers seldom if ever mature perfect fruit. The evidence seems to indicate a narrow belt extending through northern New Hampshire, Vermont and Michigan, with the intermediate southern sections of the Province of Ontario as the home of the Balm of Gilead.

Nova Scotia and New Brunswick,--occasional; Ontario,--frequent.

New England,--occasional throughout.

South to New Jersey; west to Michigan and Minnesota.

=Habit.=--A medium-sized tree, 40-60 feet high; trunk 1-3 feet in diameter, straight or inclined, sometimes beset with a few crooked, bushy branchlets; head very variable in shape and size; solitary in open ground, commonly broad-based, spacious, and pyramidal, among other trees more often rather small; loosely and irregularly branched, with sparse, coarse, and often crooked spray; foliage dark green, handsome, and abundant; all parts characterized by a strong and peculiar resinous fragrance. A single tree multiplying by suckers often becomes parent of a grove covering half an acre, more or less, made up of trees of all ages and sizes.

=Bark.=--Bark of trunk and lower portions of large branches dark gray, rough, irregularly striate and firm in old trees; in young trees and upon smaller branches smooth, soft grayish-green, often flanged by prominent ridges running down the stalk from the vertices of the triangular leaf-scars; season's shoots often flanged, shining reddish or olive green, with occasional longitudinal gray lines, viscid.

=Winter Buds and Leaves.=--Buds dark reddish-brown, rather closely set along the stalk, conical or somewhat angled, narrow, often falcate, sharp-pointed, resinous throughout, viscid, aromatic, exhaling a powerful odor when the scales expand, terminal about 3/4 inch long. Leaves 4-6 inches long and nearly as wide, yellowish-green at first, becoming dark green and smooth on the upper surface with the exception of a minute pubescence along the veins, dull light green beneath, finely serrate with incurved glandular points, usually ciliate with minute stiff, whitish hairs; base heart-shaped; apex short-pointed; petioles about 1-1-1/2 inches long, more or less hairy, somewhat flattened at right angles to the blade; stipules short, ovate, acute, soon falling.

=Inflorescence.=--Similar to that of P. balsamifera.

=Fruit.=--Similar to that of P. balsamifera.

=Horticultural Value.=--Hardy throughout New England; has an attractive foliage and grows rapidly in all soils and situations, but the branches are easily broken by the wind, and its habit of suckering makes it objectionable in ornamental ground; occasionally offered by nurserymen and collectors. Propagated from cuttings.

1. Winter bud. 2. Branch with fertile catkins. 3. Fertile flower. 4. Fruiting branch.

=Populus alba, L.=

ABELE. WHITE POPLAR. SILVER-LEAF POPLAR.

=Range.=--Widely distributed in the Old World, extending in Europe from southern Sweden to the Mediterranean, throughout northern Africa, and eastward in Asia to the northwestern Himalayas. Introduced from England by the early settlers and soon established in the colonial towns, as in Plymouth and Duxbury, on the western shore of Massachusetts bay. Planted or spontaneous over a wide area.

New Brunswick and Nova Scotia,--occasional.

New England,--occasional throughout, local, sometimes common.

Southward to Virginia.

=Habit.=--A handsome tree, resembling P. grandidentata more than any other American poplar, but of far nobler proportions; 40-75 feet high and 2-4 feet in diameter at the ground; growing much larger in England; head large, spreading; round-topped, in spring enveloped in a dazzling cloud of cotton white, which resolves itself later into two conspicuously contrasting surfaces of dark green and silvery white.

=Bark.=--Light gray, smooth upon young trees, in old trees furrowed upon the trunk.

=Winter Buds and Leaves.=--Buds not viscid, cottony. Leaves 1-4 inches long, densely white-tomentose while expanding, when mature dark green above and white-tomentose to glabrous beneath; outline ovate or deltoid, 3-5-lobed and toothed or simply toothed, teeth irregular; base heart-shaped or truncate; apex acute to obtuse; leafstalk long, slender, compressed; stipules soon falling.

=Inflorescence and Fruit.=--April to May. Sterile catkins 2-4 inches long, cylindrical, fertile at first shorter,--stamens 6-16; anthers purple: capsules 1/4 inch long, narrow-ovoid; seeds hairy.