generic names ’aspen’ and ’poplar’ (Table 1—8), and undoubtedly trembling aspen was the tree that the recorder had in mind. Though MacGregor (1828) said there were two varieties of poplar on the island, he did not name them. In fact the first to give specific names was Sutherland (1861) who, however, names five species that are not easy to identify: ”the Black, White and Trembling"5‘8, plus two that he says were introduced, the ”Balm of Gilead or Balsam”519 and the ”Lombardy poplar”52°. Thereafter, two of the ’botanical’ recorders include two of the island’s

three poplar species in their lists“, while five

record all three speciesm. “3

General distribution and abundance — ’Poplar' or ’poplars’ are found in only twenty-two of the thirty-seven tree lists (Table 1-8), a rather low level suggesting that none of the poplar species was initially common. It also achieved a low score (only eight records) in the total tally (Table 1—1). In fact, there are only three references to its presence in eighteenth century recordssz“, and

thereafter it only begins to be included regularly in

5” I do not know what Sutherland‘s black and white poplar are,

Since they are among his native species, they may be names he used for the balsam and bigtooth poplar. I note that Titus Smith, the Nova Scotian naturalist, used the name ‘White poplar, Populus Alba", seemingly in his survey journals dating from 1801 and 1802, for what Gorham (1955) considers to be Populus grandidentata. However, ‘black' and ‘white‘ poplar are also the standard English names for two common European poplars (P. nigra and P. alba), both of which occur in the British Isles, though the white is an introduced species there (Press & Hosking 1992). These two European species were also introduced at some stage to Prince Edward Island (Erskine 1960), though whether this was in the nineteenth ortwentieth century, I do not know. I note also that in a letter to his sister, Captain John MacDonald (1784) refers to a tree on the island that he calls ‘white poplar' and he expects his sister to know what he is talking about.

5‘9 To further confuse matters, “Balm of Gilead or balsam", which Sutherland says was one of his two introduced species, are common names applied to the native P. balsamifera. Perley (1847) also gives these as its names in New Brunswick.

52° Lombary poplar (Populus nigra var. ital/ca) originated in northern Italy and was also introduced to the British Isles as well as to North America in the nineteenth century (Press & Hosking 1992).

52‘ Bain 1890 and Macoun 1894. Bain says there were four native species but names only two: the ‘aspen poplar' and “balsam poplar‘. Likewise Macoun lists only these two species.

5” Bagster 1861; [Bain] 1882; McSwain & Bain 1891; Johnson 1895; and Watson post 1904. Bagster's “Tree poplar (Populus Cranidentata [sic])" must be the Iargetooth aspen.

523 I note that Perley (1847) in New Brunswick considered the Iargetooth aspen to be a variety ofthe trembling aspen.

52‘ Patterson 1774; MacDonald 1784; [Cambridge] 1796?. In the French period records it had been listed only once, by Jean- Pierre Roma in 1750 (see Sobey 2002, pp. 89, 92, 138).

the tree lists from about 1820 onward. Additional comments in the early period suggest that it was not very common: all that Patterson (1774) said was that there was "some poplar" on the island, while Cambridge (1796?) included the poplar (presumably trembling aspen) among those trees that he said were ”not in great plenty", and Hill (1839) said ‘poplar’ was ”not numerous". By contrast, Stewart (1806) recorded that "in some districts of the Island it is in great plenty" — he is probably referring to the areas affected by the fires of the French period mentioned by MacGregor (1828) (see below). Then, since all but one of the list-makers after 1820 record it, and some list it as a principal trees”, there is a suggestion of a greater importance for the species on the island from that time onward. By the beginning of the twentieth century it could be recorded as ”very common in woods throughout the Island"526.

As for the other two species, the only information we have is from the early twentieth century: Watson (post 1904) noted that the Iargetooth aspen was ”not uncommon in woods", while the balsam poplar was "sometimes met with”.

Specific areas — MacGregor (1828) listed ’poplar’ as one of the tree species on the north side of the Hillsborough River that contributed to the ’prospect’ from ’Mount Stewart’, the residence of John Stewart. He also noted that ’poplars’ were one of the trees that occurred on the site of what he called ”the tremendous fire of 1750", which must be a reference to the fires which we know to have occurred in the north-east of the island during the French period”.

At the beginning of the twentieth century Watson (post 1904) noted balsam poplar at a specific site near the shore at North River, and Iargetooth aspen on the western bank of ’Helen’s Creek’ (presumably Ellens Creek) in Charlottetown Royalty West.

Tree sizes — The only record of the sizes of the poplars are those of MacGregor (1828 and 1832) who noted that poplar and other trees that had ”sprung up” on the areas of the French fires of "1750” were ”ten to twelve inches in diameter”, though in his 1832 book, in what appears to be a

525

Admittedly these are Murray (1839) and Monro (1855) who were second-hand recorders.

526 Watson (post 1904).

527 See Sobey (2002) (pp. 22-24) and the section on ‘Forest Fires'

in the main Introduction of this report.

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