VIII. 2. THE YELLOW WILLOW. 269 



country. I have found it in Martha's Vineyard, in Waltham, 

 and along the roads in Berkshire. 



The Blue Willow, S. ccerulea, is by some made a separate 

 species ; by some, it is considered a variety of the white. It is 

 figured in Sowerby's English Botany, p. 2431. The only char- 

 acters, by which it is distinguished from & alba are, that the 

 under surface of the leaves is less silky, often quite smooth, and 

 that the leaves have a bluish hue, deeper than that of the white. 

 It has been extensively introduced, and is found in many parts 

 of the State ; and so readily does it propagate itself, that the 

 blue willow, with others of the same group, fringes the beauti- 

 ful Housatonic, in the midst of wildness and of cultivation, 

 from its source to the sea. 



This willow is considered preferable, on account of the rap- 

 idity of its growth, to the white. 



Sp. 14. The Yellow Willow, or Golden Osier. & vitel- 



lina. L. Introduced. 



Figured in Sowerby's English Botany, 1389. The tree in Loudon, Arb., 



VII, Plate 206. 



Leaves lanceolate, acute, with glandular serratures, acuminate, glaucous 

 and more or less silky beneath ; often so, but usually smooth above ; stipules 

 minute, lanceolate, deciduous, smooth ; ovaries ovate-lanceolate, sessile, 

 smooth; scales linear-lanceolate, acute, fringed at the base, longer than the 

 pistil; style short, stigmas deeply cleft. — Hooker's British Botany, 419; 

 Loudon, III, 1528. Differs from the white in its longer, more taper aments, 

 lanceolate, pointed scales, smooth filaments, smoother leaves, and conspicu- 

 ously in its bright yellow branches. 



This is a native of Britain and various other parts of Europe, 

 where it is extensively cultivated as an ornamental tree, and as 

 an osier, and grows sometimes to the height of fifty or sixty 

 feet. 



The golden osier has been more extensively propagated in 

 New England than any other foreign willow. It is found in 

 many parts of Maine, where it sometimes attains a height of 

 thirty feet, in New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, and all 

 parts of Massachusetts. As it grows here, the trunk is rarely 



