ated from cuttings.

[Illustration: PLATE XVII.--Populus deltoides.]

1. Winter buds.
2. Branch with sterile catkins.
3. Sterile flower, back view.
4. Sterile flower, front view.
5. Scale of sterile flower.
6. Fertile flower.
7. Fruiting catkin.
8. Branch with mature leaves.
9. Variant leaf.

=Populus balsamifera, L.=

BALSAM. POPLAR. BALM OF GILEAD.

=Habitat and Range.=--Alluvial soils; river banks, valleys, borders of
swamps, woods.

Newfoundland and Nova Scotia west to Manitoba; northward to the
coast of Alaska and along the Mackenzie river to the Arctic circle.

Maine,--common; New Hampshire,--Connecticut river valley, generally near
the river, becoming more plentiful northward; Vermont,--frequent;
Massachusetts and Rhode Island,--not reported; Connecticut,--extending
along the Housatonic river at New Milford for five or six miles, perhaps
derived from an introduced tree (C. K. Averill, _Rhodora_, II, 35).

West through northern New York, Michigan, Minnesota, Dakota (Black
Hills), Montana, beyond the Rockies to the Pacific coast.

=Habit.=--A medium-sized tree, 30-75 feet high, trunk 1-3 feet in
diameter, straight; branches horizontal or nearly so, slender for size
of tree, short; head open, narrow-oblong or oblong-conical; branchlets
mostly terete; foliage thin.

=Bark.=--In old trees dark gray or ash-gray, firm-ridged, in young trees
smooth; branchlets grayish; season's shoots reddish or greenish brown,
sparsely orange-dotted.

=Winter Buds and Leaves.=--Buds 3/4 inch long, appressed or slightly
divergent, conical, slender, acute, resin-coated, sticky, fragrant when
opening. Leaves 3-6 inches long, about one-half as wide, yellowish when
young, when mature bright green, whitish below; outline ovate-lanceolate
or ovate, finely toothed, gradually tapering to an acute or acuminate
apex; base obtuse to rounded, sometimes truncate or heart-shaped;
leafstalk much shorter than the blade, terete or nearly so; stipules
soon falling. The leaves of var. _intermedia_ are obovate to oval; those
of var. _latifolia_ closely approach the leaves of _P. candicans_.

=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-ma