CATKIN-BEARING TRIBE 163 



25. Soft Shaggy-flowered Willow (S. holosnicea). — Leaves lanceo- 

 late, taper-pointed, serrate, smooth aliove, pale, downy, and strongly veined 

 beneath ; catkins cylindrical ; scales black, very shaggy. This Willow grows 

 wild about Lewes, in Sussex, flowering in April and Ma}^ Its sessile and 

 pale-coloured stigmas, and its leaves, green and wrinkled above and strongly 

 veined beneath, distinguish it from *S^. acuminata, to which it is nearly allied, 

 both being regarded as varieties of S. viminalis. 



26. Great Round-leaved Sallow or Goat Willow (S. caprda). — 

 Stem erect or drooping ; leaves roundish, egg-shaped, pointed, at first entire, 

 downy above, woolly beneath, autumnal ones serrated, waved, nearly smooth 

 above, downy beneath ; stipules somewhat kidney-shaped, toothed ; style 

 very short or none. The AA'illow sometimes called -S'. ."fphacelata, from the 

 discoloured points of its leaves, is a sub- Alpine form of this ; and S. pcndnJa, 

 the Kilmarnock Willow, is a variety with liroad gloss}'^ leaves and drooping 

 branches. The Goat Willow is truly beautiful in springtime, w^hen, long- 

 before a leaf unfolds, thousands of its catkins, like golden balls, are 

 gleaming upon the naked boughs. How the early bees cluster about them, 

 won l)y their fragrance to neglect the opening bluebells and primroses ; and 

 how merrily the chiff"-chaff, scarcely larger or less bright than themselves, 

 utters his cry of welcome as he flits about them ! Bishop Mant says of 

 them : — 



" But cautious of their germs, protrude 

 The brethren of the copse and wood ; 

 For flower or leaf conspicuous most 

 The watery Willows' spray, embost 

 With oval knobs of silky down, 

 Which soon in form of papal crown 

 Shall decorate the rustic stem, 

 With many a golden diadem." 



Children and countr}^ people call the boughs, when covered with their cat- 

 kins, "palms," and many a country child goes forth to gather them, as we 

 have often done, during the week preceding Palm Sunday, with some vague 

 fancy that these Willow-boughs were strewed by the joyful children who 

 shouted the loud hosannas to the Saviour when He entered Jerusalem. This 

 palm-gathering is a remnant of an old Catholic superstition, a relic of times 

 when the pilgrim bore from the Holy Land a palm-branch, to prove that he 

 had won rightly the name of Palmer, and had wandered over the very spots 

 once trodden by our Lord and His disciples. In later years Willow-branches 

 were blessed by the priests ; but why, in this country, the Willow — and this 

 particular species — should have been chosen to represent the palm-branch, 

 is not very obvious, though it is certainly not from any resemblance between 

 the two trees. The chief reason, perhaps, was that the two plants were 

 associated together in the direction given to the Israelites, when desired to 

 make booths for that out-of-door rejoicing, so suited to a bright climate, and 

 to the joyous spirits which such a climate induces. When they celebrated 

 the Feast of Tabernacles, they were to gather "the boughs of goodly trees, 

 branches of palms, and the boughs of thick trees and Willows of the brook, 

 and to rejoice before the Lord their God seven days." 



The Goat Willow was so called because goats are said to be fond of its 



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