Common Cottonwood/Poplar trees in our area:

 

 

Cottonwood:

 

• Deciduous tree, 75-100+ ft, (23-30 cm), pyramidal to vase with age.  Bark is ash-gray and divided into thick ridges.  Terminal buds 0.6-2 cm long with 6-7 visible scales, lateral bud, somewhat smaller, more or less flatened, appressed.  Leaves alternate, simple, deltoid-ovate, or broad-ovate, 7-12 cm long and about as broad, tip acuminate, base subcordate to truncate, margin coarsely crenate-dentate with curved teeth, glabrous, bright green; petiole 6-10 cm long, flattened laterally, this allows the leaf to flutter in the slightest breeze.  Flowers dioecious - male and female trees- in pendulous catkins, 7-10 cm long, appearing before leaves.  Mature fruit (seed) catkins 15-25 cm long, containing many capsules, each 8-12 mm long, splitting into 3-4 parts when mature, releasing tufted seeds, the white "cotton" seen at dispersal time.

 

• Sun, prefers moist situations, but tolerates dry soils, saline conditions, and is very pH adaptable.  Short-lived.

 

• Hardy to USDA Zone 2     Native range from Quebec to North Dakota, Kansas, Texas, and Florida.

 

 

 

Narrowleaf Cottonwood:

 

• Deciduous, medium sized tree, to 50-65 ft (15-20 m) high, slender with a narrow conical crown, thin ascending branches, rather willow-like.  Bark whitish or yellowish-green, smooth, becoming furrowed on mature trunks.  Leaves alternate, simple, narrow, lanceolate, ovate-lanceolate, resembling willow, 5-9 cm long, 1.5-4 cm wide, widest at or below the middle, tapering and finely toothed to the tip, rounded to wedge-shaped at base, light yellowish-green above, paler and often resin stained below; petiole short and almost circular in cross section.

 

• Sun part shade.  Often found along streams and on sand bars, a wetland species, it is not drought tolerant.

 

• Hardy to USDA Zone 3     Native range from southern British Columbia, Alberta, and Saskatchewan south to south-central California, Texas, and northern Mexico (Chihuahua).  Common throughout Rocky Mountain region of western Montana, central and southern Idaho, and Colorado, can be found, but is uncommon, in Oregon (mostly in Steens Mountain in the extreme southeastern part of the state).

 

 

 

White Poplar:

 

• Deciduous, large tree, 40-70 ft (12-21 m) tall with a similar spread.   Bud and twigs covered with short white hairs.  Bark is initially smooth and whitish gray, becoming rough and dark with age.  Leaves alternate, simple, on long shoots 3-5 lobes, coarsely toothed, 5-13 cm long, dark green above, silvery gray and densely woolly underneath, on short branches smaller, only 2.5-5 cm, oval to elliptic-oblong.  Male and female trees (dioecious), small flowers in catkins, male catkins 5-7 cm long, female catkins 7-10 cm long.

 

• Sun.  Easy to grow.  Does best in moist, deep loam.  Messy and has brittle branches.

 

• Hardy to USDA Zone 3      Native to Europe, western Siberia, and central Asia.  One of the first trees introduced from Europe to North America, where it has since hybridized with several native Populus species.