CHAP. CIII. SALICA CEA. SALIX. 1511 
ing to some, this is a distinct species, indigenous to the island; and others 
even assert that it is not a willow at all. Being anxious to procure correct 
information as to the tree at St. Helena, we sent a letter to the Morning 
Chronicle, which appeared in that journal on Sept. 5. 1836. We received 
a great many answers; some dried specimens ; a number of drawings and 
engravings, either lent or given; and one living plant. The result of the . 
whole, as far as it is worth making public, is as follows:— No species of 
willow is indigenous to St. Helena; but about 1810, or before, when 
General Beatson was governor there, he, being fond of planting, had a great 
many forest trees and shrubs introduced from Britain; and though, as 
appears by the St. Helena Gazette for 1811-12,.he had the greatest diffi- 
culty in preserving his plantations from the numerous goats which abounded 
in the island, yet several of the trees survived, and attained a timber-like 
size. Among these was the tree of Salix babylénica, which has since been 
called Napoleon’s wiliow. This tree grew among other trees, on the side 
of a valley near a spring; and, having attracted the notice of Napoleon, he 
had a seat placed under it, and used to go and sit there very frequently, 
and have water brought to him from the adjoining fountain. About the time 
of Napoleon’s death, in 1821, a storm, it is said, shattered the willow in 
pieces; and, after the interment of the emperor, Madame Bertrand planted 
several cuttings of this tree on the outside of the railing which surrounds 
the grave; and placed within it, on the stone, several flower-pots with 
heartsease and forget-me-not. In 1828, we are informed, the willows 
were found in a dying state; and twenty-eight young ones were, in conse- 
quence, placed near the tomb, which was at that time surrounded with a 
profusion of scarlet-blossomed pelargoniums. A correspondent, who was at 
St. Helena in 1834, says one of the willows was then in a flourishing con- 
dition ; but another, who was there in 1835, describes it as going fast to 
decay, owing to the number of pieces carried away by visitors. In what 
year a cutting from this willow was brought to England for the first time 
we have not been able to ascertain; but it appears probable that it 
may have been in the year 1823, and that one of the oldest plants is that 
in the garden of the Roebuck tavern on Richmond Hill, which, as it appears 
by the inscription on a white marble tablet affixed to it, was taken from 
the tree in that year. Since that period, it has become fashionable to 
possess a plant of the true Napoleon’s willow ; and, in consequence, a great 
many cuttings have been imported, and a number of plants sold by the 
London nurserymen. There are now trees of it, in a great many places. 
There is a handsome small one in the Horticultural Society’s Garden; one 
at Kew; several at Messrs. Loddiges’s; some in the Twickenham Botanic 
Garden ; one in the garden of Captain Stevens, Beaumont Square, Mile 
End; one in the garden of Mr. Knight, at Canonbury Place, Islington, 
brought over in 1824; one in the garden of No. 2. Lee Place, Lewisham, 
Kent ; one in the garden of No. ]. Porchester Terrace; one in the garden 
of S. C. Hall, Esq., Elm Grove, Kensington Gravel Pits; one, a very 
flourishing and large tree, in the garden of Mrs. Lawrence, Drayton Green ; 
one at Clayton Priory, near Brighton; one at Allesley Rectory, near Co- 
ventry; several at Chatsworth ; and there are various others in the neigh- 
bourhood of Londen, and in different parts of the country. In ornamental 
plantations, the weeping willow has the most harmonious effect when in- 
troduced among trees of shapes as unusual as its own; partly of the same 
kind, as the weeping birch, and partly of contrasted forms, as the Lombardy 
poplar; and the effect of these three trees is always good when accom- 
panied by water, either in a lake, as in fig. 1305., or in a stream and water- 
fall, as in fig. 1306. Both these views are of scenery in the park at Monza. 
(See Encyc. of Gard., ed. 1835, p. 36.) Fig. 1037. is an example of the use 
of trees having drooping branches, and others having vertical branches, such 
_ as the Lombardy poplar, in contrasting with and harmonising horizontal lines. 
(See Gard. Mag., vol. i. p. 117.) For further remarks on the use of the 
