Populus deltoides Marshall
necklace poplar
Large tree to c. 30 m high, with spreading branches, usually scarcely suckering. Bark grey, fissured. Shoots slightly angular when mature, yellowish grey. Winter buds and very young shoots viscid, glabrous. Young lvs not aromatic. Petiole of mature lvs to 9 cm long, flattened, glabrous. Lamina 5-10.5 × 4-11 cm, broad-deltoid or broad-ovate, reddish brown when young, glabrous except for margin, becoming wholly green; margin with narrow translucent band, crenate-serrate with curved glandular teeth, densely ciliolate when young; base truncate or subcordate, with 2 glands prominently or weakly developed on either side of petiole; apex acuminate. Catkins ♀, pendulous, mostly eventually 15-20 cm long. Rachis glabrous. Bracts 2-3 mm long excluding filiform lobes, glabrous, whitish. Cup-shaped disc 1-2 mm deep, glabrous; margin irregular. Ovary glabrous; stigmas mostly 3-lobed, irregular, large. Capsules containing abundant long white hairs.
N.; S.: occasional throughout.
Eastern N. America 1983
Moist places such as riverbanks.
FL Sep-early Oct.
Necklace poplar is a very common cultivated tree in both main islands. The pendulous branchlets with long abundant pendulous fruiting catkins amongst the young reddish brown lvs are characteristic of this plant in November and December. Flowering is followed by the release of an enormous quantity of white cotton-like fluff which covers the ground. Except for recent introductions to cultivation all wild and cultivated N.Z. trees are of one ♀ clone, very probably cv. 'Virginiana'. Necklace poplar usually spreads by suckers; if seed is produced, it almost certainly results from crossing with other spp., for example P. nigra and P. yunnanensis. The N.Z. plant belongs to one of the more northern forms of the sp., usually called P. deltoides var. virginiana (Castigl.) Sudw. in N. America.
