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Populus tremuloides Michx.

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Credits

Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles

Recommended citation
'Populus tremuloides' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/populus/populus-tremuloides/). Accessed 2024-09-14.

Genus

Common Names

  • American Aspen

Synonyms

  • P. trepida Willd.
  • P. graeca Loud., not Ait.
  • P. atheniensis K. Koch, not Ludwig

Glossary

apex
(pl. apices) Tip. apical At the apex.
glabrous
Lacking hairs smooth. glabrescent Becoming hairless.
ovate
Egg-shaped; broadest towards the stem.
variety
(var.) Taxonomic rank (varietas) grouping variants of a species with relatively minor differentiation in a few characters but occurring as recognisable populations. Often loosely used for rare minor variants more usefully ranked as forms.

References

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Credits

Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles

Recommended citation
'Populus tremuloides' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/populus/populus-tremuloides/). Accessed 2024-09-14.

Populus tremuloides

Populus tremuloides is one of North America's most widely distributed tree species, here growing on a stable scree slope at around 1700 m asl in Oregon's Wallowa Mountains (15 June 2022). Image Julian Sutton.

A tree up to 100 ft high in the wild, but never even half that size in this country; trunk slender, paler than in P. tremula when young; young shoots reddish brown, glabrous. Leaves 1 to 21⁄2 in. long and wide, very broadly ovate or roundish, with a short, abrupt apex, and a broad, rounded or nearly straight base, very finely toothed, and furnished with fine hairs on the margin, dark glossy green above, pale and dull beneath, glabrous on both sides; stalk slender, two-edged, 1 to 21⁄2 in. long. Catkins 2 to 21⁄2 in. long, more slender than in P. tremula.

P. tremuloides is perhaps the most widely distributed tree of N. America, occurring throughout Canada south of the tundra and in most parts of the USA with the exception of the south-east and some of the prairie states. In the west it ranges from N.W. Mexico to Alaska. It is often confused in gardens with the Old World P. tremula, from which it differs in characters pointed out under that species. According to Aiton, it was introduced in 1812, but there is some doubt as to this; a poplar grown under the name of P. graeca, but identical with P. tremuloides, is said to have been cultivated in 1779. P. tremuloides has never succeeded very well in this country, where it is mainly represented by the following garden variety:°

Populus tremuloides

Populus tremuloides forms clonal colonies by suckering from the roots (Wallowa Mountains, OR; 15 June 2022). Image Julian Sutton.

Populus tremuloides

Leaves of Populus tremuloides resemble those of the closely related European P. tremula (Wallowa Mountains, OR; 15 June 2022). Image Julian Sutton.

Populus tremuloides

The white bark of Populus tremuloides is recognizable at a distance, especially after leaf fall (about 3000 m asl in the San Francisco Peaks, Coconino Co., AZ; 16 October 2006). Image Julian Sutton.

Populus tremuloides

Some populations of Populus tremuloides, especially in the west, have excellent yellow autumn colour (about 2500 m asl, Coconino Co., AZ; 16 October 2006). Image Julian Sutton.

Populus tremuloides

The extraordinary range of Populus tremuloides covers 1110 of longitude and 480 of latitude. In its more southerly sites, talus slopes high in the mountains are characteristic. This is apparently its most southerly station in the United States, but scattered sites are found all the way to Central Mexico (SW side of Emery Peak, Chisos Mountains, Texas, USA – 7 March 2024). Image Julian Sutton.

'Pendula' Parasol de St Julien

A pendulous variety. Accord­ing to a note by M. Ferdinand Cayeux in the Garden for 21st January 1886, p. 65, it was found by a foreman in the employ of Messrs Baltet at St Julien, near Troyes, in 1865. It has more slender twigs than the weeping variety of P. tremula, but it is a female, and the catkins are not so striking as the male ones of the weeping aspen.

var. vancouveriana (Trel.) Sarg.

Synonyms
P. vancouveriana Trel. ex Tidestr

This variety, a native of British Columbia (including Vancouver Island) and also reported from Washington and Oregon, differs from the typical state in the young shoots being downy and in the leaves being woolly when young. Trelease, who describes it as a tree 15 to 35 ft high, says it is easily distinguished from P. tremuloides by the peculiar toothing of the leaves. ‘The teeth are much larger than in any of its immediate allies and besides being crenulate are depressed so that each tooth viewed from the edge forms a double curve.’

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