Populus x canadensis Moench

Populus: Ancient Latin name for poplar

canadensis, -e: from Canada

Habit: Deciduous, dioecious tree up to 30 m tall with a stout trunk with dark gray, deeply fissured bark and spreading or erect branches forming an ovoid or subglobose crown.

Leaves: alternate, deciduous, simple, petiolate, with deciduous stipules; blade 10-15 cm long, broadly ovate-deltate, with a truncate base and an acuminate apex, margin crenate-dentate with a hairy fringe, otherwise almost glabrous.

Flowers: proteranthous, unisexual, small, not showy, naked, arranged in hanging catkins ± 7 cm long; male flowers with 6-10 stamens; female flowers with a syncarpous, 2-carpellate unilocular gynoecium with a superior ovary.

Fruit: ovate-globose capsule ± 8 mm that opens into 2 valves, releasing numerous woolly seeds.

It flowers at the end of winter or beginning of spring, before the leaves sprout; fruits mature at the end of spring.

Artificial hybrid between P. deltoides Marshall and P. nigra L. obtained in the 18th century.

It is widely cultivated as a shade tree in streets and parks and to obtain cellulose paste for making paper in areas around rivers.

In spring, when its capsules open, it releases a cottony substance that covers the gardens of this campus and many streets in Madrid. It is just a bundle of minute seeds, each of which has a tuft of long whitish hairs.

It is propagated from seeds, harwood cuttings or root suckers.