Poplar Swamp Poplar Cottonwood

=Habitat and Range.=--In or along swamps occasionally or often

overflowed; rare, local, and erratically distributed.



Connecticut,--frequent in the southern sections; Bozrah (J. N. Bishop);

Guilford, in at least three wood-ponds (W. E. Dudley in lit.), New

Haven, and near Norwich (W. A. Setchell).



Following the eastern coast in wide belts from New York (Staten

island and Long island south to Georgia; west along the Gulf coast

to western Louisiana, and northward along the Mississippi and Ohio

basins to Arkansas, Indiana, and Illinois.



=Habit.=--A slender, medium-sized tree, attaining a height of 30-50

feet, reaching farther south a maximum of 90 feet; trunk 9-18 inches in

diameter, usually branching high up, forming a rather open hemispherical

or narrow-oblong head; branches irregular, short, rising, except the

lower, at a sharp angle; branchlets stout, roundish, varying in color,

degree of pubescence, and glossiness, becoming rough after the first

year with the raised leaf-scars; spray sparse.



=Bark.=--Bark of trunk dark ash-gray, very rough, and broken into

loosely attached narrow plates in old trees; in young trees light

ash-gray, smooth at first, becoming in a few years roughish, low-ridged.



=Winter Buds and Leaves.=--Buds conical, acute, more or less resinous.

Leaves 3-6 inches long, two-thirds as wide, densely white-tomentose when

young, at length dark green on the upper side, lighter beneath and

smooth except along the veins; outline ovate, wavy-toothed; base

heart-shaped, lobes often overlapping; apex obtuse; leafstalk long,

round, downy; stipules soon falling.



=Inflorescence.=--April to May. Sterile catkins when expanded 3-4 inches

long, at length pendent; scales cut into irregular divisions, reddish;

stamens numerous, anthers oblong, dark red: fertile catkins spreading,

few and loosely flowered, gradually elongating; scales reddish-brown;

ovary short-stalked; styles 2-3, united at the base; stigmas 2-3,

conspicuous.



=Fruit.=--Fruiting catkins spreading or drooping, 4-5 inches long:

capsules usually erect, ovoid, acute, shorter than or equaling the

slender pedicels: seeds numerous, white-hairy.



=Horticultural Value.=--Not procurable in New England nurseries or from

collectors; its usefulness in landscape gardening not definitely known.






1. Winter buds.

2. Branch with sterile catkin.

3. Sterile flower.

4. Scale of sterile flower.

5. Branch with fertile catkin.

6. Fertile flower.

7. Fruiting branch with mature leaves.





=Populus deltoides, Marsh.=



Populus monilifera, Ait.