Populus deltoides, the eastern cottonwood or necklace poplar, is a cottonwood poplar native to North America, growing throughout the eastern, central, and southwestern United States as well as the southern Canadian prairies, the southernmost part of eastern Canada, and northeastern Mexico.
Description
Populus deltoides is a large tree growing to tall and with a trunk up to diameter, one of the largest North Americanhardwood trees. The bark is silvery-white, smooth or lightly fissured when young, becoming dark gray and deeply fissured on old trees. The twigs are grayish-yellow and stout, with large triangular leaf scars. The winter buds are slender, pointed, long, yellowish brown, and resinous. It is one of the fastest growing trees in North America. In Mississippi River bottoms, height growth of per year for a few years has been seen. Sustained height growth of height growth and diameter growth per year for 25 years is common. Eastern cottonwood's range is centered in the Midwestern US. It is not common in the Northeast and is reported only in scattered occurrences, which may constitute intentional plantings rather than natural ones. The leaves are large, deltoid, long and broad with a truncated base and a petiole long. The leaf is very coarsely toothed, the teeth are curved and gland tipped, and the petiole is flat; they are dark greenin the summer and turn yellow in the fall. Due to the flat stem of the leaf, the leaf has the tendency to shake from even the slightest breeze. This is one of the identifying characteristics. It is dioecious, with the flowers produced on single-sex trees in early spring. The male catkins are reddish-purple and long; the female catkins are green, long at pollination, maturing long with several seed capsules in early summer, which split open to release the numerous small seeds attached to cotton-like strands. A single tree may release 40 million seeds a season.
Variation
The species is divided into three subspecies or up to five varieties. The subspecies classification is as follows:
Populus deltoides subsp. deltoides, eastern cottonwood is found in southeastern Canada and the eastern United States.
P. d. monilifera Eckenw., the plains cottonwood ranges from southcentral Canada to the central United States and south to northern New Mexico and Texas.
P. d. wislizeni Eckenw., the Rio Grande cottonwood grows from southern Colorado south through Texas to northeastern Mexico, and west to Arizona.
Ecology
It needs bare soil and full sun for successful germination and establishment; in natural conditions, it usually grows near rivers, with mud banks left after floods providing ideal conditions for seedling germination; human soil cultivation has allowed it to increase its range away from such habitats. Unlike related species such as quaking aspen, it does not propagate through clonal colonies, but will resprout readily when cut down. The leaves serve as food for caterpillars of various Lepidoptera.
Uses
The wood of eastern cottonwood is typical of the Populus family in its softness, weighing just. It is utilized for things like plywood and interior parts of furniture. General Custer fed his horses and mules the bark during the 1868–69 winter campaign against Native American tribes south of Arkansas. According to Charles Goodnight, cowboys afflicted with gastric disorders would make an astringent tea from the inner bark.
Oldest and largest
Eastern cottonwoods typically live 70–100 years, but they have the potential to live 200-400 years in ideal conditions. The Balmville Tree was the oldest eastern cottonwood in the United States.
Calling the cottonwood tree "the pioneer of the prairie", the Kansasstate legislature designated the cottonwood the official state tree of Kansas in 1937. It became the state tree of Wyoming in 1947, and that of Nebraska since 1972.
