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NATIVE BLACK POPLAR SURVEY
While there is some uncertainty about the status of the Mistletoe, the true Native Black Poplar
Populus nigra subsp. betulifolia is definitely in trouble, with only about 2,000-3,000 (mainly
male) trees left in this country. The Native Black Poplar Working Group are planning to study
most of the trees in this country and obtain cuttings from them to grow up new trees and
maintain the gene pool. You will see from our new EFC program card that we have the first
of what will be several meetings scheduled to make our own photographic record of tree shape
before the leaves appear, and later on collect a foliage sample for the herbarium, together with
site and ownership details, for all our Essex trees. How many are there in Essex? Probably
no more than 50-60 at most. How does one recognise it? Although probably originally a tree
of meandering river valleys, with an annual layer of flood plain silt remaining wet over the
summer, so that seeds could germinate and establish seedlings. Most of our trees have been
planted, presumably established from cuttings or trunchions, very often well away from a
river valley. You could find them in a hedgerow virtually anywhere. The mature tree is usually
distinctive with massive grey-brown fissured trunks to 2m in girth, that often lean, and huge
lower branches that arch outwards and downwards, the trunks and these lower branches being
heavily bossed or burred in older trees, whereas the upper branches spread upwards to form
a wide crown, giving a tree up to 30m high. The leaves are generally longer pointed than the
hybrid black poplars, and more often truncate rather than cordate at the base, with gently
sinuous rather than sharply toothed margins, but where distinct teeth are evident in large
leaves they are not hooked at the tip. The twigs and leafstalks are softly downy when young
(one of the best characters) and seldom have glands at the junction of the laminar and petiole,
unlike the other 'blacks'. If you think you have found one please give me a ring.
Ken Adams