1660

ARBORETUM AND FRUTICETUM.

PART HI.

of the trunk 3.ft., and of the head 57 ft.; in Monmouthshire , at Dowlais House, 10 years planted,it is 20 ft. high j in Worcestershire , at Croome, 25 years planted, is 90 ft. high, the diameter ofthe trunk 20 in., and of the head 20 ft. In Scotland , in the Experimental Garden, Inverleith, 9 yearsplanted, it is 23 ft. high ; in Berwickshire, at the Hirsel, 13 years planted, it is 44 ft. high ; in Lanark,shire, in the Glasgow Botanic Garden , 16 years planted, it is 60 ft. high ; in Roxburghshire,near Hawick , one tree, 59 years planted, has a clear trunk of 55 ft., which girts 6 ft. 2 in., and con.tains 130 ft. of timber; another tree, 63 years planted, has a clear trunk of 55 ft., with a maingirt of 6ft. 11 in., and contains 164ft. of timber; in Argyllshire, at Toward Castle, 15 yearsplanted, it is 36 ft. high ; in Clackmannanshire, in the garden of the Dollar Institution, 12 yearsplanted, it is 40 ft. high y in Perthshire, in Dickson and Turnbull’s Nursery, 65 years planted,it is 73 ft. high, diameter of the trunk 2| ft., and of tire head 42 ft. In Ireland , in the GlasnevinBotanic Garden, 5 years planted, it is 16 ft. high. In Austria, at Vienna , in Rosenthal’s Nursery,16 years old, it is 33 ft. high, the diameter of the trunk 1 ft., and of the head 27 ft. In Bavaria ,at Munich, in the English Garden , 80 years planted, it is 50 ft. high, the diameter of the trunk20 in., and of the head 15 ft.

% 11. P. fastigia'ta. The fastigiate, or Lombardi/, Poplar.

Identification. Desf . Hist. Arb., t. 2. p. 465.

Synonymes. P. diiatdta Ait. Han't. Kew., ed. 1., 3. p. 406., ed. 2., 5. p. 396., Willd. Arb., 229., Sp.PL, 4-. p. 304., Spreng. Syst. Veg., 2. p. 244.; P. nigra italica Du Eoi Harbk., 2. p. 141.; P. italicaMcench Weissenst, 79.; P. italica dilatilta Willd .; P. pyramid&ta Hovt .; P. pannonica Jacq .;P. italica var. carolindnsis Burgsdorf; Cypress Poplar, Turin Poplar, Po Poplar; Peuplier d’ltalie,Peuplier pyramidal, Fr. ; Lombardisehe Pappel, Italianische Pappel, Ger . ; Pioppo Cypresso, Ital.

The Sexes. Plants of the male are plentiful in England. The female is known to be extant in Lorn-bardy, whence we have received dried specimens and seeds in November, 1836. (See Gard. Mag,vol. xii.) M. C. A. Fischer, inspector of the University Botanic Garden, Gbttmgen, found, m1827, a single plant of the female, after having many years before sought fruitlessly for it, amongmany thousands of plants around Gottingen . (See Gard. Mag., vol. vi. p. 419, 420.)

Engravings. Jaume St. Hilaire; our figs. 1519, 1520.; and the plates in our last Volume. Infig. 1520., a represents the female catkins with the blossoms expanded ; b, the female catkins withseeds ripe ; c, a portion of the female catkin of the natural size; d, a single flower of the naturalsize; and e, a single flower magnified.

Spec. Char., §c. A very distinct kind, having the form of the cypress tree,from its branches being gathered together about the stem. (Willd.) Petiolecompressed. Disk of leaf deltoid, wider than long, crenulated in the wholeof the edge, even the base; glabrous upon both surfaces. {Ait. Hort. Kew.,and Spreng.) Leaves in the bud involutely folded. A tree, growing tothe height of from 100 ft. to 120 ft., and sometimes to 150 ft. introducedfrom Italy into Britain about 1758, and flowering in March and April.{Ait. Sort. Kew.)

Description, Sfc. The Lombardy poplar is readily distinguished from allother trees of this genus by its tall narrow form, and by the total absence ofhorizontal branches. The trunk is twisted, and deeply furrowed; and thewood, which is small in quantity in proportion to the 1519

height of the tree, is of little worth or duration, beingseldom of such dimensions as to admit of its being sawnup into boards of a useful width. The leaves are verysimilar to those of P. nigra, and the female catkins tothose of P. monillfera; the male catkins resemble thoseof P. nigra, and have red anthers, but are considerablymore slender. One difference between P. fastigiata andP. nigra is, that the former produces suckers, though notin any great abundance; while the latter rarely producesany. P. fastigiata, also, in the climate of London , pro-trudes its leaves eight or ten days sooner than P. nigra.

The male catkins of P. fastigiata, wetted and laid uponpaper, stain it of a deep green. The rate of growth ofP. fastigiata, when planted in a loamy soil, near water,is very rapid. In the village of Great Tew, in Oxford-shire , a tree, planted by a man who, in 1835, was stillliving in a cottage near it, was 125 ft. high, having beenplanted about 50 years. The Lombardy poplar is but ofshort duration ; for, though a tree from one of the originalcuttings brought home by Lord Rochford still exists in a vigorous state a.Purser’s Cross, yet the trees at Blenheim, and other places, planted aboutthe same time, or a few years afterwards, are in a state of decay.

Geography, History, fyc. The Lombardy poplar is considered, by SignorManetti and others, as wild in Italy, particularly in Lombardy , on the banksof the Po ; because it has been observed that, when that river overflows i s