The Grey Poplar of the Weizigtpark

The youngest tree on this page is a hybrid nobody bred. The grey poplar is a natural cross between white poplar and aspen, and it takes the speed of both: mature ones reach around 35 metres. This one went in between 1940 and 1950, so it is roughly 76 to 86 years old, an age at which most trees are still waiting for a register to notice them. The national register noticed, and lists it at the southeast edge of the Weizigtpark, beside the public path. It stands 88 metres from the silver maple already on this page, near enough that the two are one stop rather than two, and 227 metres from the oak in the wooded strip along the railway. With the pond cypress at the far end, Weizigt is now a four-tree walk inside a single park. Grey poplars read best from underneath. The leaves are dark green on top and white-felted below, so a breeze turns the whole crown two colours at once, and the aspen half of the parentage keeps them moving after the rest of the park has gone still. The lower bark stays pale, marked with the dark diamonds the white poplar side gives it, long after other poplars have gone dark and furrowed. Nobody has published a girth for this one; if you have a tape, tell us.