I have long been pleased in my travels around Seattle to encounter what plant expert Arthur Lee Jacobson called the “ubiquitous exclamation point” of trees—the Lombardy poplar. Tall and narrow, and often in rows, either in a single line or paired to create an allée, Lombardy poplars add an element of arborescent elegance to any street or yard. Or as Scottish botanist John Claudius Loudon opined in his 8-volume Arboretum et Fruticetum Britannicum (1834-1837), the Lombardy’s perpendicular lines confer “a degree of sublimity…since it is allowed by all writers on the material sublime…that gradually tapering objects of great height create the emotion of sublimity.”

Intriguingly, the Lombardy poplar is not a “natural” tree but a cultivar, described as a “fastigiate mutation of a black poplar (Populus nigra).” They appear to have originated between 1700 and 1720, along the Po River in Lombardy, Italy. Fast growing, relatively hardy in and tolerant to many environments, the trees quickly become popular in the horticultural world. In particular, growers used what those in the trade called oblong-headed Lombardys to contrast with round-headed trees: sort of like a Conehead meets Charlie Brown?

The narrow finger of a tree found favor as well in the urban setting, particularly along streets. One of the first places this occurred in the United States was in 1803 along Pennsylvania Avenue, which was just beginning its long history as one of the central streets of the nation’s capitol. Hoping to beautify the mostly barren road, President Thomas Jefferson called for planting four rows of Lombardy poplars flanking the new thoroughfare with the tree’s giant feather-like profile.

As poplarmania spread, so did the accolades. Lombardy lovers described the trees as having “an irresistible charm” and an “aristocratic gracefulness of proportions.” They provided shelter from storms, an effective means of increasing shade, and could be harvested relatively quickly for firewood. Some people also suggested that the tall tree made a good lightning rod claiming, “the electric fluid attacks in preference such trees as are verging to decay by reason of age or disease.”

Others though felt that the tree was “stiff, ugly, graceless, and useless” and “most abominable in its serried stiffness and monotony.” Not surprisingly, politics rooted itself into the arboreal world of supporters and detractors. In the April 1898 Essex Antiquarian, one author wrote: “Political feeling was so strong in the old Jeffersonian days that these poplars were condemned by the Federalists on account of Jefferson having been instrumental in introducing them. Some of the Republicans planted these trees in front of their residences to show their allegiance to Jeffersonian principles, and the enraged Federalists were guilty of injuring and destroying them. This was true in Salem in 1801 in several instances, the mischief being of course done under cover of darkness.” Ah, always good to see that our present horde didn’t invent petty BS politics.

It’s not known when Lombardy poplars arrived in Seattle, but they were listed for sale in Olympia newspapers as early as 1858. As happened in many places, the trees appear to have been planted in Seattle to create shade, as a wind break, and to add a bit of elegance. When people did this, it also seems to me that the plantings often designated boundaries or property lines.

For instance, I know of a spot around the Lake City neighborhood, where ancient looking Lombardy poplars grow in two intersecting rows. The property is overgrown and unkempt with several of the trees now only a fractured trunk. I wouldn’t have noted the property except for the trees, which led me to track down a 1936 aerial photograph. In it, I can see that the property looks more formally developed and I like to think that I see the young poplars. I also know from local historian Valarie Bunn that this neighborhood was going through a growth spurt in the mid-1920s, so perhaps some enterprising person or family had planted the trees to enhance and protect their nascent property.

No matter what actually happened with these rows of Lombardy poplars, I know that the trees’ story cannot be separated from the story of people. Someone had to have planted them and that someone had to have a reason. At least that’s what I think when I see Lombardy poplars in the landscape today; the trees are clues to the past and the long-term relationship between people and place.

Word of the Week - Fastigiate - A Latin derivation meaning pointed, which in botany refers to upright branches parallel to the main stem, typically resulting in a narrow tapering form. By the way, no relation to fastidious.

Two sources I relied on were for quotes:

* Anne Beamish, “A Much-abused Tree: The Rise and Fall of the Lombardy Poplar,” Studies in the History of Gardens and Designed Landscapes 42, no. 2, 120-137.

* Christina D. Wood, “‘A Most Dangerous Tree’: The Lombardy Poplar in Landscape Gardening,” Arnoldia 54, v. 1, 24-30.

A follow up to last week’s newsletter about mining at Mount St. Helens. My friend Nathan Reynolds wrote to me about plans to try and develop the Green River area north of the volcano for copper. If we’ve learned anything from the past, mining in this region is a horrible idea. Not only does it tend to break people’s banks, it is also terrible for the environment. I have been fortunate to hike several times in the area of the proposed mine and it is some of the most beautiful forest anywhere. Here’s what I wrote for my book about the Cascades.

“I soon began to feel tiny, dwarfed by huge Douglas-firs and red cedars skyscrapering up to the point that it hurt my neck to look so high. Below them were seventy- to eighty-foot snags, usually riddled with cavities, many of which could have been homes for birds and mammals; groves of young trees thriving in an opening caused by one of their ancestors crashing to the ground; nurse logs galore strewn with rows of western hemlocks; and a dense and diverse understory of mosses, herbs, ferns, and shrubs, all sweetened by the rolling notes of Pacific Wrens and haunting calls of Varied Thrushes.”

November 22, 2025 – Holiday Bookfest – 2:00 – 4:00 P.M. – Phinney Neighborhood Center – I’ll be joining a wonderful group of writers selling our books…just in time for the upcoming holidays. Always a fun event.

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