=Winter Buds and Leaves.=--Buds 1/8-1/4 inch long, reddish-brown and lustrous, usually smooth, ovate, acute, often slightly incurved at apex, the upper often appressed. Leaves 1-2-1/2 inches long, breadth usually equal to or exceeding the length, yellowish-green and ciliate when young, dark dull green above when mature, lighter beneath, glabrous on both sides, bright yellow in autumn; outline broadly ovate to orbicular, finely serrate or wavy-edged, with incurved, glandular-tipped teeth, apex rather abruptly acute or short-acuminate; base acute, truncate or slightly heart-shaped, 3-nerved; leafstalk slender, strongly flattened at right angles to the plane of the blade, bending to the slightest breath of air; stipules lanceolate, silky, soon falling. =Inflorescence.=--April to May. Sterile catkins 1-3 inches long, fertile at first about the same length, gradually elongating; bracts cut into several lanceolate or linear divisions, silky-hairy; stamens about 10; anthers red: ovary short-stalked; stigmas two, 2-lobed, red. =Fruit.=--June. Capsules, in elongated catkins, conical; seeds numerous, white-hairy. =Horticultural Value.=--Hardy throughout New England in the most exposed situations; grows almost anywhere, but prefers a moist, rich loam; grows rapidly; foliage and spray thin; generally short-lived; often used as a screen for slow-growing trees; type seldom found in nurseries, but one or two horticultural forms are occasionally offered. Propagated from seed or cuttings. [Illustration: PLATE XIV.--Populus tremuloides.] 1. Branch with sterile catkins. 2. Sterile flower. 3. Branch with fertile catkins. 4. Fertile flower. 5. Fruiting branch. 6. Branch with mature leaves. 7. Variant leaves. =Populus grandidentata, Michx.= POPLAR. LARGE-TOOTHED ASPEN. =Habitat and Range.=--In rich or poor soils; woods, hillsides, borders of streams. Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, southern Quebec, and Ontario. New England,--common, occasional at altitudes of 2000 feet or more. South to Pennsylvania and Delaware, along the mountains to Kentucky, North Carolina, and Tennessee; west to Minnesota. =Habit.=--A tree 30-45 feet in height and 1 foot to 20 inches in diameter at the ground, sometimes attaining much greater dimensions; trunk erect, with an open, unsymmetrical, straggling head; branches distant, small and crooked; branchlets round; spray sparse, consisting of short, stout, leafy shoots; in time and manner of blossoming, constant motion of foliage, and general habit, closely resembling _P. tremuloides._ =Bark.=--Bark of trunk on old trees dark grayish-brown or blackish, irregularly furrowed, broad-ridged, the outer portions separated into small, thickish scales; trunk of young trees soft greenish-gray; branches greenish-gray, darker on the underside; branchlets dark greenish-gray, roughened with leaf-scars; season's twigs in fall dark reddish-brown, at first tomentose, becoming smooth and shining.