252 WOODY PLANTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



cula, which Abbott has represented as living on the leaves of a 

 kindred species, the necklace poplar, in Georgia. 



VIII. 2. THE WILLOW. SALIX. L. 



The willows are distinguished from the poplars by having 

 the scales which form the aments entire, and by having only 

 from one to seven stamens in the sterile flowers. The fertile con- 

 tain a single ovary surmounted by two stigmas which are usually 

 two-parted. The willows are shrubs or trees, varying in height 

 from two or three inches, to eighty or ninety feet. They are 

 natives of the cooler regions of the northern hemisphere, some 

 of them being smaller, and extending farther north, than any 

 other woody plants, and others being found in mountainous re- 

 gions in Africa, India, China and Peru. Growing naturally on 

 plains in moist situations by water courses, they are often 

 lofty trees ; on mountains and dry plains, they are for the most 

 part diminutive shrubs. 



The roots of the willows are remarkable for their toughness, 

 magnitude, length, and tenacity of life. On the borders of 

 streams, they often form masses which present a powerful re- 

 sistance to the action of water ; and they are not unfrequently 

 many times larger and longer than the stems which issue from 

 them. The stems are upright or spreading; the branches 

 round, slender, and very flexible ; the bark rather tough ; the 

 leaves simple, and usually of much greater length than breadth ; 

 and accompanied, on opening, by two stipules, which are often 

 permanent and remarkably large, but often caducous ; the buds 

 are covered with a leathery, concave scale. The aments are ter- 

 minal or lateral, and appear, in different species, before, with, or 

 after the leaves. The willows are like the poplars in the rap- 

 idity of their growth, and in the facility with which they may 

 be propagated by offsets, layers and cuttings. 



"The many important uses," says Hooker, "rendered toman 

 by the different species of willow and osier, serve to rank them 

 among the first in our list of economical plants." In the ex- 

 treme north-western regions of Europe, the inner bark is kiln- 

 dried and ground, to be mixed with oatmeal in times of scar- 



