Balsam Poplar Observations (publ. 2025-04-03)

Today (2025-04-03) I took a walk by the Tanana River during the lunch break. The temps today were above freezing, and the sun was bright and delivering a lot of heat. I needed only my sweater and my jacket for warmth.

Technically, the day was partly cloud, but most of the clouds were wispy and flat. Some of the thin clouds to the West had interesting undulations in density, staggered like train tracks. I could see, far off near the horizon in various directions, some thick cumulus clouds here and there.

I walked down one of the dike trails straight up to the riverbank, amongst some small balsam popular (cottonwood) trees, and observed the river. Both the path and the river were still covered by snow, but it was a wet, half-melted snow, which turned quickly to water in my hand. However, I couldn't see any liquid water or bare ice yet on the Tanana, at least not that part.

I observed an insect flutter by — some very small creature with tiny moth-like white wings. I also heard a sound near the river bank, which I initially thought must be some small animal. But I suppose more likely it was the sound of snow shifting.

I focused on one young balsam poplar tree which was about nine feet tall. On the upper part of the trunk, the bark was grayish-white with gray horizontal bands that each went partially or entirely around the trunk. At the lower part of the trunk, the bark was textured an even mix of white and gray, finely textured. The gray color had a noticeable wavy pattern to it, like multiple sinusoidal waves going down the trunk, which created an interference pattern.

The twigs on the tree have a knobby appearance, with the little knobs squeezed close together, like a compressed accordion. The older branches are much smoother.

The tree's closed buds were about 1 or 1.5 cm long, and around 4mm thick. The closed buds are reddish-brown in color and very sticky. The sticky resin appeared yellow in color when I rubbed it against my white notebook paper. Ripping open a bud revealed small yellow-green leaves and a lot more sticky resin.

Copyright

CC BY-SA 4.0 Deed