Poplar Tree Facts

Scientific name: Populus

• 'Beauty' (Ukraine), 'Emotion', 'Sorrow'.

• It clones itself on long root systems.

• The Neanderthals used Poplars to relieve toothache — fossils of jaws and loose teeth have been found packed with material from the tree. They also twisted the fibres to make strings.

• Greek heroes wore poplar garlands in battle.

• The Greek Sungod Helios' son, Phaethon, died by a lightning bolt, and Zeus turned the tearful female mourners into a cluster of Poplars.

• Hercules tied its leaves into a victory wreath after defeating the giant, Cacus.

• There are over 8000 Black Poplars in Great Britain, a large number of which are located in the Lea Valley.

• The Black Poplar has been known since the Early Middle Ages.

• Since Napoleonic times, Black Poplars have been frequently grown along roadways in Germany, as he had ordered when controlling parts of that country.

• In legend, the underside of White Poplar leaves represented the sweat of Hercules as he crowned himself with a wreath from this tree when he brought Cerberus, the Hound of Hades, out of the Underworld.

• The White Poplar is not native to the British Isles but was imported and now outnumbers the Black Poplar.