Fig. 116. A Weeping Willow
56. The Poplars. In the poplars we have a group of trees similar to the willows in some ways but very different in others. The wood is weak and of little use except for fuel and paper pulp, but there the likeness ends.
To this family belongs the quaking aspen, whose leaves are continually trembling,—in fact, the whole family is a restless one, the constant motion being due to the shape of the long stems, which are flattened.
The people of Scotland have a superstition that it was of aspen wood that our Saviour’s cross was made, and that the tree shivers in constant remembrance of that fact.
Fig. 117.
Aspen Aspen Poplar, or Large-Toothed Aspen
Beside the quaking aspen is the large-toothed aspen, the Lombardy poplar, and the cottonwood.