Populus alba
Common name
white poplar
Family
Salicaceae
Flora category
Vascular – Exotic
Structural class
Trees & Shrubs - Dicotyledons
NVS code
The National Vegetation Survey (NVS) Databank is a physical archive and electronic databank containing records of over 94,000 vegetation survey plots - including data from over 19,000 permanent plots. NVS maintains a standard set of species code abbreviations that correspond to standard scientific plant names from the Ngä Tipu o Aotearoa - New Zealand Plants database.
POPALB
Habitat
Terrestrial.
Features
Tree to approx. 25m high, usu. spreading, suckering profusely. Bark grey, rather smooth to shallowly fissured. Shoots white-tomentose, terete. Buds white, with appressed tomentum, not viscid. Young leaves not aromatic. Petiole1.5~5cm long, white-tomentose, slightly compressed. Lamina on vegetative shoots 3~10 x 2~9.5cm, deltoid, with 3~5 lobulate or toothed primary lobes; lamina on adult shoots smaller, ovate, ovate-oblong or suborbicular, lobed or strongly toothed, always white, loosely tomentose below and at first above, later glabrous or nearly so on upper surface, green and shining; margin lacking translucent band; base truncate, rounded or subcordate, glandless; apex obtuse or rounded. Catkins female, pendent, 2~8cm long at antithesis. Rachis villous. Bracts 3~3.5mm long, membranous, shining, brown in upper part, incised to shallowly toothed, prominently long-ciliate. Cup-shaped disc .5~.8mm deep, glabrous or somewhat villous; margin slightly sinuate. Ovary glabrous; stigmas slender, whitish. Capsule containing dense, white cotton-like hairs, esp. towards base. (-Webb et. al., 1988)
Similar taxa
White undersides of leaves (Thompson & Reeves 1994).
Flowering
September
Year naturalised
1904
Origin
Eurasia. Africa
Reason For Introduction
Agricultural
Life Cycle Comments
Perennial.