Stratum.black
Populus — Populus
Populus — Christian Fischer, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY SA 3.0

Plant

Populus

Fossil poplar leaf

Populus is the poplar; fossil poplar leaves (P. wilmattae and others) are the most common broadleaf in the Green River Formation, found as brown leaves with fine venation on cream limestone from the Bonanza and Douglas Pass sites in Utah and Colorado as well as Fossil Butte. Green River leaves are cheap and legal from private and state quarries. Leaves are frequently enhanced with paint.

PhylumTracheophyta
ClassMagnoliopsida
OrderMalpighiales
FamilySalicaceae
GroupPlant
Rank (PBDB)genus· Paleobiology Database
AuthorLinnaeus 1753· Paleobiology Database
Common name (PBDB)poplar· Paleobiology Database
Classification (PBDB)Angiospermae › NO_CLASS_SPECIFIED › Malpighiales › Salicaceae· Paleobiology Database
Range (PBDB)113–0 Ma· Paleobiology Database
PBDB occurrences344· Paleobiology Database

Photographs

Populus — Populus tremula L. (NHMUK BM013848021)
Populus tremula L. (NHMUK BM013848021) — © The Trustees of the Natural History Museum, London, Natural History Museum (London) Data Portal, CC BY 4.0
Populus — Populus alba L. (NHMUK BM013414743)
Populus alba L. (NHMUK BM013414743) — © The Trustees of the Natural History Museum, London, Natural History Museum (London) Data Portal, CC BY 4.0
Populus — Populus canadensis 'robusta' (NHMUK BM015157981)
Populus canadensis 'robusta' (NHMUK BM015157981) — © The Trustees of the Natural History Museum, London, Natural History Museum (London) Data Portal, CC BY 4.0

Age

Formations

Elsewhere

Cite this article

Stratum Study. "Populus" (Taxon). Stratum Study pack 2026.09, as of 2026-09-19. https://stratum.black/study/taxa/populus. Accessed 2026-09-20.

BibTeX · CSL-JSON

@misc{stratum-populus,
  title        = {Populus},
  author       = {{Stratum Study}},
  howpublished = {\url{https://stratum.black/study/taxa/populus}},
  year         = {2026},
  note         = {Taxon article, Stratum Study pack 2026.09, as of 2026-09-19; sources: stratum, pbdb, wikidata, commons, nhm. Accessed 2026-09-20.}
}

Citations carry the pack version and the article's as-of date so they resolve to the same text later. The facts themselves belong to the sources listed below; cite those for the science.