18 . EDWARD W. BERRY 



the willows) to river bars, mud banks, peat bogs, mountain tops 

 and similar unfavorable situations. Both willows and poplars 

 are very fast growers and both are relatively short lived. The 

 majority are not tall trees and the seeds quickly lose their vitality 

 and the trees are much damaged by winds because of their 

 brittle wood. . 



The willows are far more diversified and more widely dis- 

 tributed than the poplars, and the facility with which hybrids 

 are formed and the trivial specific differentiation of so many of 

 the species makes them a very baffling group for the systematic 

 botanist. Although both willows and poplars come from a very 

 old stock, a stock as old as any of our trees except the conifers, 

 and one much more ancient than that of our familiar warm 

 blooded animals, the willows seem to have reached the zenith 

 of their development in post glacial times, while the poplars 

 on the other hand were more varied and widespread in earlier 

 geologic times. 



There are about 200 existing species of willows of all grades of 

 stature, and while we think of them as especially chai^acteristic 

 of the North Temperate Zone they are by no means confined 

 to it but range from the Arctic Circle southward across the 

 equatorial regions into the South Temperate Zone. In America 

 there are upwards of 100 species, ranging in size from tiny plants 

 a few inches high under the Arctic Circle to trees 140 feet tall 

 and 4 feet in diameter in more genial situations, as in the bottom 

 lands of the lower Mississippi. About a score of these are trees. 

 They are found from tidewater to the snowline of mountains 

 and from the Arctic through Canada and the United States 

 to the Gulf, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific. They occur 

 in the West Indies and Central America and southward to the 

 Chilean Andes. In the Old World the}^ range from Arctic 

 Europe and Asia southward over both of these continents to 

 Madagascar and South Africa, and from the Himalayan region 

 . southeastward through Malaysia to Java. 



Aside from the older uses of willow as cover to prevent erosion 

 or for basketry or charcoal, its utilization for lumbering has 

 had a relatively modern development. At the present time low 



