File:Arboretum et fruticetum britannicum, or - The trees and shrubs of Britain, native and foreign, hardy and half-hardy, pictorially and botanically delineated, and scientifically and popularly described (19751199095).jpg

Title: Arboretum et fruticetum britannicum, or : The trees and shrubs of Britain, native and foreign, hardy and half-hardy, pictorially and botanically delineated, and scientifically and popularly described ...
Identifier: arboretumetfru03loud (find matches)
Year: 1844 (1840s)
Authors: Loudon, J. C. (John Claudius), 1783-1843
Subjects: Trees; Shrubs; Botany; Botany
Publisher: London : J. C. Loudon
Contributing Library: California Academy of Sciences Library
Digitizing Sponsor: California Academy of Sciences Library

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generally in France, and occasionally in Italy, is often a very beautiful and natural accompaniment to buildings. " We have observed," he says," a very whimsical effect produced by the long rows of these poplars in France, when seen crowning a distant elevation, where they have had to us all the appear- ance of an army drawn up; and we remarked that this whimsical deception very frequently occurred." (Lauder's Gilpin, vol. i. p. 116.) Mr. Sang considers the Lombardy poplar as a "very ugly tree;" a circumstance which we are rather surprised at in so enlightened an observer. The prevalence of these poplars in the vicinity of London, and other places in England, he says, he found tiresome in the extreme. Cobbett asserts the poplars to be a " very worthless family of trees;" and he adds, " That well-known, great, strong, ugly thing, called the Lombardy poplar, is very apt to furnish its neighbours with a surplus population of caterpillars, and other abominable insects." ( Woodlands?) Poetical and legendary Allusions. Some authors make Lombardy poplars the trees into which the sisters of Phaethon were changed. The unhappy virgins, say they, in their despair, clasped their hands above their heads, till they became fixed, and with the long hair which hung down and covered them like a veil, changed into leaves and branches, from which their tears stream incessantl)'. Notwithstanding the poetry of this idea, the Lombardy poplar could not be the tree alluded to by Ovid ; since it has certainly been either originated in, or introduced into, Italy at a comparatively modern period, and consequently was not known to the ancients. The spiral form of this poplar, and the manner in which it waves in one mass, have been noticed by several of our modern poets. Leigh Hunt speaks of The poplar's shoot, Which, like a feather, waves from head to foot;" and Barry Cornwall says, — " The poplar there Shoots up its spire, and shakes iti leaves i'the sun Fantastical." The Isle of Poplars, in the Marquis de Girardin's gardens at Ermenonville, is celebrated for having been the place chosen by Rousseau for his own grave. The island is about 50 ft. long, and 30 ft. broad, and is situated at one end of a large lake. The only trees planted on the island are Lombardy poplars. A plan of the island may be seen in the Encyclopaedia of Gardening, ed. 1835, p. 86.; and a view of the island and the tomb forms the frontispiece to Girardin's Essay on Landscape, &c. 5 Q 4

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