Balsam Poplar

Most Islanders are familiar with Poplar (aka Trembling Aspen, featured last week), and many know of its relative, Large-tooth Aspen. But you may not have met PEI’s rarest member of this group: Balsam Poplar (Populus balsamifera).

Balsam Poplar is easily distinguished from Trembling Aspen by its round rather than flat leaf stems (petioles), and deep green, shiny leaves; its leaves lack the serrated (toothed) edges of Large-toothed Aspen. One of the most distinctive features of Balsam Poplar – visible at any time of year – are the sharply-pointed, sticky buds (photo).

If you’re lucky enough to walk into a stand of Balsam Poplar as those buds are opening in spring or on a hot summer day, you’ll likely smell this tree before you see it. The stickiness of the buds is from a resin (called balsam) that has a spicy-sweet, exotic scent.

Those resinous buds have long been used to make salves for healing skin sores and relieving aching muscles; modern research has found the resin has pain-relieving properties and is effective against various types of bacteria and yeast. Another name for salve is balm, and Balsam Poplar is sometimes called Balm-of-Gilead (although that name is also used for a related hybrid [Populus x jackii] that’s not native to PEI but has been planted in residential areas).

I most often find Balsam Poplar on damp ground and along streams, and I see it much more frequently in western PEI than elsewhere in the province. It recently occurred to me that Poplar Grove in Prince County is an area of the Island I’ve long associated with Balsam Poplar – in fact, this photo was taken not far from there – and I wondered if that’s how the community got its name.

A quick check with Alan Rayburn’s indispensable “Geographical Names of Prince Edward Island” dispelled my theory. PEI’s Poplar Grove was named for a former home of Joseph Frederick Wallet DesBarres, a cartographer who served as the Island’s Lieutenant Governor from 1804 to 1813. It seems the prevalence of Balsam Poplar in the forests of Poplar Grove is just a coincidence.

Despite being rare on the Island, Balsam Poplar is common on the mainland and has one of the widest distributions of any of our tree species. It can be found from northern Yukon and Alaska, all the way to North Carolina. It’s also been introduced to every continent except Antarctica.

Balsam Poplar is one of the lesser-known but beautiful trees of PEI Untamed!