FOREST TREES. 21 r 



looking trees — Golden-barked Willows — that overshadowed his house. 

 He was yet in the prime of middle age, vvithout a gray hair. " Those 

 trees," he said, " were planted mere slips by me, when I was a boy." 

 To an immigrant fresh from one of the crowded, smoking cities of the 

 old country, where trees are rarely seen in any of the public streets, the 

 refreshing verdure of the Maples, Locusts, Elms and Willows that 

 adorn the thoroughfares of our Canadian towns must be a source of 

 enjoyment, and prove exceedingly attractive objects. We owe this taste 

 for shading our streets, to the Americans, and thank them for the 

 example they set us, which we now find followed even in our small 

 Canadian rural villages. With the exception of such purposes as hat 

 boxes and baskets, for which the wood of the larger species is used. 

 The wood of the Willow is not very valuable. 



A large number of trees and shrubs of this family are indigenous 

 to our country. The two species Salix alba and Salix vitelliiia, are 

 said to be of foreign extraction, they are the largest and most commonly 

 grown, but there are several very beautiful species that may be seen on 

 our river h?inks—Salix ///<r/^a— Shining Willow is a tall, elegant-growing 

 slender species, with bright-barked sprays and long, very smooth, foliage ; 

 there are too, many lovely dwarf Willows, some not exceeding a few feet 

 in height, remarkable for the light yellow-green foliage and elegant 

 drooping catkins. Some of these pretty dwarf Willows are found on 

 rocky gravelly river-banks drooping over the water. It seems to me 

 that a division should be made between the bright-leaved, bright- 

 barked Willows, and the grey, coarse, hoary upright-growing species, 

 which are neither useful nor ornamental, of this class we have several 

 kinds, as the tall rough-leaved. Grey Willow, with broad, coarse, veiny 

 leaves, upright branches and very long green catkins with dark scales 

 and white down, a tallish tree of little beauty and no value for timber 

 or fuel. Some of these grey-leaved Willows are bushy shrubs from 

 eight to fifteen feet high, branching out from the root-stock and forming 

 thickets on low wet ground, while others are found on dry hills and 

 open grassy plains. There are dwarf species, such as the dwarf Low 

 Bush Willow, Salix hiunilis, which abounds on those open tracts of 

 ground, known as Oak Openings and Plains. These are rather pretty 

 little shrubs, even after the fall of the leaf; the green leaf-buds and silvery 

 catkins give a look of life and promise of better days to come, of Spring 

 and sunshine in store for us. There is a peculiarly in this small 

 shrubby Willow which is the oval leafy cone-like gall which terminates 

 the branches, it has a pretty effect and remains persistent all 

 through the Summer, and till the Spring, when it hardens, turns grey 

 and falls to pieces. These cones are attributed by naturalists to the 



