Flora of North America species comparison

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Populus deltoides subsp. monilifera
Photo is of parent taxon

eastern cottonwood, plains cottonwood, plains eastern cottonwood
Habit Plants to 40 m. Winter buds pubescent, hairs relatively short, stiff.
Leaves

blade base usually with 2 round basilaminar glands, apex long-acuminate, abaxial surface glabrous at emergence; preformed blade with (3–)7–15(–21) teeth on each side; neoformed blade lengths about equaling widths.
Pedicels

lengths uniform, 1–6(–8 in fruit) mm.
Capsules

with thin, flexible valves.

Populus deltoides subsp. monilifera
Phenology Flowering Mar–Jun; fruiting May–Jul.
Habitat Along streams and lakes, usually in mesic soils, on dunes, also cultivated
Elevation 50-2200 m (200-7200 ft)
Distribution
from FNA
CO; IA; ID; IL; IN; KS; MI; MN; MO; MT; ND; NE; NM; NY; OH; OK; OR; PA; SD; TX; WA; WI; WY; AB; MB; ON; SK
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

Subspecies monilifera is the abundant cottonwood of the Great Plains and extends sparsely through the Rocky Mountains to the Columbia Plateau. It intergrades with subsp. deltoides in a band along the southeastern edge of the Great Plains to the Great Lakes region. These intermediates have longer pedicels and may have 3–5 elongate basilaminar glands. It intergrades also with subsp. wislizeni along the southwestern margin of the Great Plains, where there are plants with longer pedicels and preformed leaves with fewer teeth and without basilaminar glands.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Source FNA vol. 7, p. 18.
Parent taxa Salicaceae > Populus > Populus deltoides
Sibling taxa
P. deltoides subsp. deltoides, P. deltoides subsp. wislizeni
Synonyms P. monilifera, P. besseyana, P. deltoides var. occidentalis, P. sargentii, P. sargentii var. texana
Name authority (Aiton) Eckenwalder: J. Arnold Arbor. 58: 204. (1977)
Web links 
Unless otherwise noted, all data comes from the online version of the Flora of North America, who have made most of their content available via a Creative Commons license (CC BY 4.0).



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