| DESCRIPTION: It is a large deciduous tree with tall clean straight bole and broad rounded crown. The bark of young trees is smooth greenish-grey and that of the old trees dark brown with deep vertical fissures. Leaves broadly ovate or ovate-lanceolate, with serrulate-crenate and ciliate margins, 7.5-18.0 cm long, base usually cordate. USE: Leaves are used as fodder. Wood is used for making boxes for packing grapes and also for poles, trucks and barrow-trays, coaches, furniture and cross-beams. Suitable for second quality match-splinters. The finishing quality of the wood is nearly equal to that of teak. Wood also used as paper pulp and fuel. Bark is a tonic, stimulant and blood purifier. Successfully established from branches and stem cuttings, roots easily on shallow soils where other species cannot be established, has a reasonably fast growth rate and produces abundant strong lateral roots with little taper. The tree is grown in agroforestry systems with ginger, turmeric, colocasia, lentils and toria. GROWING PERIOD: Perennial. COMMON NAMES: Himalayan poplar. FURTHER INF: In the natural range of its distribution, it prefers moist cool places, though it comes up on dry slopes also where the growth is generally very poor. The climate is broadly temperate, for example in blue pine and spruce forests. It grows in a wide range of soils ranging from sandy in river beds to clayey loam but best growth occurs on well aerated loamy soil with abundant moisture. Shallow soils with underlying hard or impervious layer support poor growth. It does not tolerate alkalinity and grows well on slightly acidic or neutral soils. |