Shiver me timbers

Ousted by fast-growing imports, the balletic black poplar could be a floodplain champion in the battle against climate change, argues Vicky Liddell

THE leaning trunk of a native black poplar (Populus nigra subsp. betulifolia) cuts a lonely silhouette against the winter skyline. Sometimes known as 'ballerina poplars' for their acrobatically angled limbs, these towering trees were once common throughout the country and are immortalised in Constable's The Hay Wain. Their distinctive shape was used to delineate field and boundary markers, but their natural home is on floodplains and alongside rivers, where they have a curious habit of bending over like Narcissus to gaze into the water. Today, apart from a few strongholds in Shropshire, Cheshire, Somerset and East Anglia, the black poplar has almost disappeared and is, according to the Forestry Commission, the most endangered native timber tree in the UK, with an estimated 7,000 individuals, most of which are male.

Black poplars are large, unruly members of the Salicaceae family and their natural distribution is almost exclusively south of a line from the Mersey to the Wash. Capable of reaching a height of some 100ft, they have a lifespan of 200 years and their name is derived from the grey-brown bark, which takes on a blackish hue. The twisted, deeply fissured trunk is covered with burrs and tuberous growths and its shiny, diamond-shaped leaves are constantly trembling, a characteristic that has led to its other name, 'the shiver tree'.