A year among the trees

by Wilson Flagg

THE LOMBARDY POPLAR.

There are not many trees that take the shape of a long spire; but Nature, who presents to our eyes an ever-charming variety of forms as well as colors, has given us this figure in the arbor-vitæ, the juniper, and the Lombardy Poplar. This was the species which was cultivated by the Romans, the classic Poplar of Rome and Athens. To this tree Ovid alludes when he describes the resinous drops from the Poplar as the tears of Phæton’s sisters, who were transformed into poplars. Smith says: “Groves of poplar and willow exhibit this phenomenon, even in England, in hot calm weather, when drops of clear water trickle from their leaves like a slight shower of rain.”

The Lombardy Poplar is interesting to thousands in this country, who were familiar with it in their youth as an ornament of roadsides, village lanes, and avenues. It was once a favorite shade-tree, and still retains its privileges in some ancient homesteads. A century ago, great numbers of Lombardy Poplars were planted by village waysides, in front of dwelling-houses, on the borders of public grounds, and particularly in avenues leading to houses that stand at some distance from the high road. A row of these trees is even now suggestive of an approach to some old mansion, that still retains its primitive simplicity.

LOMBARDY POPLAR.

Great numbers of Lombardy Poplars were destroyed at the beginning of this century, from the notion that they generated a poisonous worm or caterpillar. But some of these ancient rows of poplars are occasionally seen in old fields where almost all traces of the habitation they accompanied are gone. There is a melancholy pleasure in surveying these humble ruins, whose history would illustrate many of the domestic habits of our ancestors. The cellar of the old house is now a part of the pasture land; and its form may be dimly traced by an angular depression of the surface. Sumachs and cornel-bushes have supplanted the exotic shrubbery in the old garden; and the only ancient companions of the Poplar now remaining are a few straggling lilacs, some tufts of houseleek, and perhaps, under the shade of a dilapidated fence, the white Star of Bethlehem is seen meekly glowing in the rude society of the wild flowers.

But the Lombardy Poplar, once a favorite wayside ornament, a sort of idol of the public, and, like many another idol, exalted to honors beyond its merits, fell suddenly into contempt and neglect. After having been admired by every eye, it was spurned and ridiculed, and cut down in many places as a cumberer of the ground. The faults attributed to it were not specific defects of the tree, but were caused by a climate uncongenial to its nature. It was brought from the sunny clime of Italy, where it had flourished by the side of the orange and myrtle, and transplanted to the snowy plains of New England. The tender habit of the tree made it incapable of enduring our winters; and every spring witnessed the decay of many of its small branches. It became prematurely aged, and in its decline carried with it the marks of its infirmities.

With all these imperfections, it was more worthy of the honors it received from our predecessors than of its present neglect. It is one of the fairest of trees in the greenness of its youth, far surpassing any other poplar in its shape and in the density and general beauty of its foliage; but nearly all these old trees are gone, and few of the same species are coming up to supply their places. While I am writing, I see from my window the graceful spire of one solitary tree, towering above the surrounding objects of the landscape. It stands there, the symbol of decayed reputation; in its old age still retaining the primness of its youth, neither drooping under its infirmities nor losing in its decrepitude the fine lustre of its foliage. In its disgrace, it still bears itself proudly, as if conscious that its former honors were deserved, and not forgetting the dignity that becomes one who has fallen without dishonor.

There is no other tree that so pleasantly adorns the sides of narrow lanes and avenues, or so neatly accommodates itself to limited enclosures. Its foliage is dense and of the liveliest verdure, making delicate music to the soft touch of every breeze. Its terebinthine odors scent the vernal gales that enter our open windows with the morning sun. Its branches, always turning upwards and closely gathered together, afford a harbor to the singing birds, that make them a favorite resort; and its long, tapering spire, that points to heaven, gives an air of cheerfulness and religious tranquillity to village scenery.