The black poplar - Fiona Cooper

A cultural and ecological biography of the black poplar in
Britain. Fiona cooper explores the tree's historic place in the
landscape, and how it has played a role in folklore and in the work of poets such as William Cowper. She
explains how the tree has been used through the centuries as
timber and in medicine, and then addresses the question of its
conservation. She investigates the reasons for the black poplar's
decline, and focuses in particular on the important populations
in the Vale of Aylesbury and in Manchester, which is in danger of
completely losing trees which for a century have been a
distinctive feature of the urban landscape. The key to the
species' survival in Britain may in fact lie in our own
understanding of its genetic make-up.