Good morning. Today is nonidi, the 9th of Pluviôse, Year CCXXXI. We celebrate le puplier, an underrated lumber tree with surprisingly beautiful wood grain.
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Ask a builder about poplar, and they'll probably have a low opinion. One of the softest woods to still be considered a "hardwood" (it's not that different from pine), poplar's typical usage is in picture frames and pallettes, throwaway constructions that take advantage of its cheap price. But ask a sawyer, and you'll find many of them evangelizing for it as the best wood ever. Abundant, fast-growing, naturally straight, typically free of knots, and full of surprising wood grains, milling a poplar trunk is like opening a present: easy to do and full of only the good kind of surprises. If you really want to have fun, try rainbow poplar, which has multicolored wood ranging from green to purple in the same log, and makes beautiful natural table tops once it's strengthened with some lacquer and epoxy.
I think it's fair to say poplar has always been an overlooked species of tree. If you asked a crowd, Family Feud-style, to name tree species, I doubt poplar would make the list, even though people generally know the word. But a funny thing has happened to poplar in the 21st century. Thanks to how easily species of poplar are cross-bred, and how fast it grows, and how hardy it is, and how beautiful it looks, people's minds are changing about the tree.
And I don't just mean people are liking it more, or knowing more about it. Suddenly, it seems like everyone's asking poplar to put on a cape and save the world.
