This tree resembles the great aspen in almost every particular except
size. It is a very common tree in our woods, but is so little esteemed
that it has received no protection and is seldom planted by our
roadsides. It is found chiefly in copses on the sides of some gravelly
bank, growing almost alone, with a few cherry-trees and white birches,
and an undergrowth of brambles and whortleberry-bushes. It is often
abundant on little dry elevations that rise above an oak wood standing
on a clay level. It is remarkable for its slenderness of habit and the
smoothness of its pale-green bark, which becomes whitish and rough as
the tree grows old. Its principal defect is the thinness of its foliage
and spray; its small branches are few and far apart, and its leaves
small and sparse. Yet the beauty of each individual leaf is unrivalled.
It is heart-shaped, finely serrate, and when young is fringed with a
soft, silky, and purple down. It would be difficult to select a branch
from any other tree, when in leaf, so beautiful as a spray of the Small
Aspen.
I do not understand the botanical difference between the Aspen and the
poplar, except that the former includes certain species that possess in
an exaggerated degree the family characteristic of a tremulous leaf. The
Aspen, however, is the proverbial tree, the tree of romance and fable.
Hence we regard it with more interest, though in America the two aspens
fall short of the poplars in almost every point of elegance and beauty.