Last year I spied a different colored tree leaf as I traveled up the highway. The light was just right, and the breeze just right, and the traffic just light enough that I was able to glimpse the bark and guess that it might be Balsam Poplar, Populus balsamifera. It helps that this tree was on my mind, one of the three Populus species known to inhabit Maine forests. Until then, however, I had only collected specimens from its two cousins, P. tremuloides (Trembling Aspen) and P. grandidentata (Big-toothed Aspen). Balsam Poplar is not rare in Maine. However, I had made that highway trip many times before and never seen it. The photo (left) was taken at Forillon National Park on the Gaspe Peninsula - great groves catching the breeze wherever we looked. The tree is less pentiful along I-95 but just as lovely.
That day last year was the beginning of my love of this tree with the two-toned olive leaves on a dual-personality trunk. I took each off-ramp until I found accessible trees from which I could gather enough leaves for my teaching collection. This past week I got an unexpected opportunity to travel north to the Gaspe in Canada, and on the way we saw SO MANY BALSAM POPLARS! From my observations, the tree is definitely not rare, but it does seem to occupy northern regions which is why I hadn't seen it before in our area (neither had a forester that I'd questioned). In spite of seeing this tree everywhere we went this past week, I did not tire of its dark upper leaf contrasting with its lighter lower side, of its creamy gray-green upper bark, or its chunky flat-ridged lower bark. From any distance, it presents as a weird yellow-pink-green canopy that distinctively stands out from the rest of its community. We saw it on wet lowlands and in the mountains and everywhere in between. Even as we made our way down I-95 toward home, my eyes caught them here and there - a happy sight.