SALIX ALBA. ORD. IL. Amentacezx. 9 
Spec. Char. Leaves elliptical-lanceolate, regularly glanduloso serrate, acute, 
silky beneath, often so above. Germen ovate acuminate, nearly sessile, 
glabrous. . Stigmas sub-sessile, short, recurved, bifid. Scales short, pubes- 
cent at the margin. 
THE common White Willow is a native of Britain, growing in woods, 
hedge-rows, and wet meadow and pasture land; flowering in April and May. 
It is a tall straight tree, and attains a very considerable size.* The trunk is 
covered with a cracked bark of a greyish colour; the branches are numerous, 
spreading widely; the deaves are alternate, on short petioles, sharply and 
elegantly serrated; their lower serratures, remote and glandular, shining, 
pubescent above, white and silky beneath; the barren catkins cylindrical, 
blunt, one and a half to two inches long, four lines broad, on foot-stalks 
which are half an inch long. Stamens two; nectaries two, one before the 
stamens, and inversely heart-shaped, the other behind them, and oblong. 
Fertile catkins slender, cylindrical, two inches long, three or four lines broad, 
on foot-stalks near an inch in length: the style is short; the stigmas bipar- 
tite, and thick; the capsules are nearly sessile, ovate, smooth, and of a brown- 
ish colour. The drawing represents a branch of a male plant, figure (a) a | 
single scale of a male catkin, shewing the stamens, &c. (magnified), (6) a 
mature amentum of a female plant, (c) a single scale of the natural size, (d) 
the germen and stigmas magnified, (e) scale, (f) a seed. 
We are told by Withering, that this species of willow prefers an open and 
moist situation, where it grows quickly, and bears lopping.t The wood is 
light, tough, pliable, and very white ; hence it is much esteemed for many 
economical purposes :—viz. for making pails, chests, boxes, and for chips 
for willow bonnets, &c.; and also for the purpose of tanning leather. 
Horses, cows, and sheep, feed on the leaves and young shoots. 
Sensible Qualities and Chemical Properties, &c. The bark is inodorous, 
somewhat bitter and astringent; water extracts these qualities: the decoc- 
* A willow of this species, grawing at Bury St. Easnuinds, (called the Abbot's wil- 
low) measures in height seventy-five feet, in girth eighteen feet six inches, and contains 
440 cubic feet of timber.—Vide Streitt's Sylva Britannica. 
+ The same author says, that, “ whoever desires to shade a walk with willows, should 
set barren plants only ; or they will soon multiply so as to form a thicket, instead of a 
walk.” 
Nad. c 
