=Populus candicans, Ait.= _Populus balsamifera_, var. _candicans, Gray._ BALM OF GILEAD. =Habitat and Range.=--In a great variety of soils; usually in cultivated or pasture lands in the vicinity of dwellings; infrequently found in a wild state. The original site of this tree has not been definitely agreed upon. Professor L. H. Bailey reports that it is indigenous in Michigan, and northern collectors find both sexes in New Hampshire and Vermont; while in central and southern New England the staminate tree is rarely if ever seen, and the pistillate flowers seldom if ever mature perfect fruit. The evidence seems to indicate a narrow belt extending through northern New Hampshire, Vermont and Michigan, with the intermediate southern sections of the Province of Ontario as the home of the Balm of Gilead. Nova Scotia and New Brunswick,--occasional; Ontario,--frequent. New England,--occasional throughout. South to New Jersey; west to Michigan and Minnesota. =Habit.=--A medium-sized tree, 40-60 feet high; trunk 1-3 feet in diameter, straight or inclined, sometimes beset with a few crooked, bushy branchlets; head very variable in shape and size; solitary in open ground, commonly _broad-based, spacious, and pyramidal_, among other trees more often rather small; loosely and irregularly branched, with sparse, coarse, and often crooked spray; _foliage dark green, handsome, and abundant_; all parts characterized by a strong and peculiar resinous fragrance. A single tree multiplying by suckers often becomes parent of a grove covering half an acre, more or less, made up of trees of all ages and sizes. =Bark.=--Bark of trunk and lower portions of large branches dark gray, rough, irregularly striate and firm in old trees; in young trees and upon smaller branches smooth, soft grayish-green, often flanged by prominent ridges running down the stalk from the vertices of the triangular leaf-scars; season's shoots often flanged, shining reddish or olive green, with occasional longitudinal gray lines, viscid. =Winter Buds and Leaves.=--Buds dark reddish-brown, rather closely set along the stalk, conical or somewhat angled, narrow, often falcate, sharp-pointed, resinous throughout, viscid, aromatic, exhaling a powerful odor when the scales expand, terminal about 3/4 inch long. Leaves 4-6 inches long and nearly as wide, yellowish-green at first, becoming dark green and smooth on the upper surface with the exception of a _minute pubescence along the veins_, dull light green beneath, finely serrate with incurved glandular points, usually ciliate with minute stiff, whitish hairs; base heart-shaped; apex short-pointed; petioles about 1-1-1/2 inches long, _more or less hairy_, somewhat flattened at right angles to the blade; stipules short, ovate, acute, soon falling. =Inflorescence.=--Similar to that of _P. balsamifera_. =Fruit.=--Similar to that of _P. balsamifera_.