From France, Lombardy or Afghanistan?

The Lombardy poplar in Kent is once again, like most of the trees I look at, not half as simple as it looks!

Identification of poplars at this time of year is not ideal - its best attempted in late spring when foliage and flowers are at their best. However Populus nigra 'Italica' or var Italica (Muenchh) is generally thought to be easily recognizable because of its fastigiate shape. Many people will know that the area to the Southeast of Hadlow stretching across the Low Weald known as the mid-Kent fruit belt, and once heavily planted with top-fruit such as apples, pears, cherries and gardens of hops, is just packed with lines of windbreaks stretching to the horizon full of various cultivars of these "lombardy poplars", and many will call the tree planted 'Italica'! The same is true, with a range of local variations, of most of the Kent fruit areas, such as the North Kent fruit belt along the North Downs.

However its perhaps not quite as straightforward as that. We may need to be aware of the somewhat broader (how fastigiate is fastigiate?) male hybrid clone originating from a cross of 'Italica' with the native black atlantic poplar, P.nigra betulifolia.  This hybrid is called Plantier's poplar ('Plantierensis'), which Stace says is as common as 'Italica', and Collins also considers frequent. These hybrids originated in Plantieres nursery near Metz in France in 1884, and are said to do better in the more Northern parts of Europe where "Lombardy" poplars are generally seen. Several websites say that it is actually commoner in NW Europe than Italica, and is often misnamed 'Italica' in error, but I don't know if this statement applies specifically to the UK or Kent - the NBN website has many more records on its interactive maps for 'Italica' than either 'Plantierensis'. The main difference in 'Plantierensis' is its somewhat hairy (pubescent) young shoots (especially noted on the petioles) in spring which it gets from its native cousin- - I'll just have to go back in late spring 2011 to check! Collins also has it as a more densely clothed canopy, a more burred trunk and smelling slightly more strongly of balsam than the light touch of 'Italica' in the summer (I have a cold so can't test this at the moment) and as several clones, even sometimes female.

There is also the so-called giant (apparently again a bit broader) female clone (watch out for all those fluffy seeds!) 'Gigantea' or 'Foemina', which is said to have a blunter top and perhaps be a little bit rarer in the West of Europe - but still "frequent"in the UK according to Mitchell (although like 'Plantierensis' also regarded by Mitchell as frequent there are limited records according to the NBN maps). Derek Whitehead from Merrist Wood College saw this female form as a street tree in Funze, the capital of Kirghizistan, then still a Soviet republic when he visited the USSR in the early 80s, covering parts of the city in its silky white seeds. It will be interesting to try to see next year which of these possibilities, 'Italica', 'Plantierensis' or even 'Gigantea', was the most favoured planting of the crafty and rufty-tufty fruit farmers of the mid-Kent fruit belt!

Nowadays of course its a bit difficult to be sure about any blunter tops or broader profiles and this has all become somewhat academic in quite a few areas, because so many of the old windbreaks have been "summarily" pollarded at about 2 - 3 m from the ground anyway - although this has saved them in some form for posterity! Trees can't be exactly preserved in aspic or frozen in time, but have to be dynamically managed for any long-term continuity of landscape to be gained, and the pollards quickly regain their generally fastigiate appearance.

The origin of the genuine 'Italica' itself is not entirely clear. Almost all authors have it associated with the Po Valley and other areas of Lombardy in North Italy in the 17th and early 18th century where it is presumed to have originated as a sport, generally assumed to be from an italian form of Populus nigra. There is however some suggestion of a more complex origin of the fastigiate 'Italica' type in N Italy actually deriving from an Afghanistani or other Central Asian source (Collins) possibly introduced via "silk road" trade, but it is also possible that this is a confusion with a possibly different fastigiate form of P. nigra originating, and perhaps still used as a street tree there and in many other parts of the world (BSBI). 'Afghanica' is said to be planted around the Mediterranean and to be distinguished by a whitish trunk, and differently shaped leaves.

Wherever 'Italica' originally came from, it certainly became well established in Lombardy by the 1700s and 'Italica' is then thought to have been introduced into Britain in about 1758. Planted in many a nobleman's estate as a reminder of the Great Tour perhaps, and then eventually demoted to a park tree and now as either the original 'Italica' or its hybrid 'Plantierensis', as a fast growing wind-break for the benefit of the Garden of England - and sometimes the detriment of its field drains - and maybe a hidden source of a scourge of pears and top-worked apples they were intended to protect - but those are perhaps other stories for another day......!

In the meantime maybe we just simply accept the graceful spires of the Lombardy poplar so often found in regimented rows marking out the boundaries across the countryside, whether it is 'Plantierensis' or the original 'Italica', and whether it owes its original genetic character as a fastigiate tree to Italy or Afghanistan, as a vital part of the rich and characteristic rural heritage of this area of the Low Weald, an indication of the extent of the fabled Garden of England at its peak, even if now the windbreaks mainly guard arable fields, pastures, and even allotments! The landscape character of specific areas of the Low Weald would be changed irrevocably without them, and these characteristic windbreak trees should not be allowed to be ploughed out, or lost by neglect. At the moment regular pollarding keeps them going in their essential form, maintains their role in supporting biodiversity, and provides a sustainable source of firewood for local people, and thus renewable income to those farmers who retain them.

No poplar-lettuce galls were seen in a cursory overview of the foliage of these trees, but there was really quite a lot of trunk and butt decay in the windbreak as a whole - very good for biodiversity..