TREES 49 



Near the river is a healthy young Crataegus grandiflora, 

 which bears yellow fruit in autumn. 



The stone vase near by, marks the spot where, until the 

 storm of November IT, 1891, a fine Weeping or Babylonian 

 Willow, " Napoleon's Willow," used to overhang the Cherwell, 

 and formed a familiar feature in pictorial views of the Garden 

 and of Magdalen Bridge taken from that side. This Willow 

 has, we are glad to say, been replaced by another specimen 

 near the southern boundary. They grow quickly, for our old 

 tree was said by Loudon to have been 30 ft. high in 1838, 

 after having been planted for twelve years. 



A large specimen may be seen on the other side of the 

 Cherwell in the garden of Magdalen College School, and there 

 is part of a fine tree at Grandpont, but it is smothered in ivy. 

 The term Babylonian is a misnomer, for the tree under which 

 the Jews sat down and wept by the waters of the Euphrates 

 was a Poplar with Willow-like leaves. 



Salix bdbylonica is remarkable as being wholly propagated 

 by slips. It is a dioecious plant, and the male has never 

 yet found its way to Europe, so that every Willow of this 

 kind, distributed over the country may possibly have been 

 derived from the single cutting selected by the poet Pope 

 from some rods in a package which came from Spain, 

 and were planted in his garden at Twickenham. 



Near the Cherwell was formerly the Willow Garden. 



THE SALICETUM 



Nee vero terrae ferre omnes omnia possunt. 

 Fluminibus salices, crassisque paludibus alni 

 Nascuntur. VIRGIL, " Georgics." 



One of the less pleasing incidents in the history of the Garden was 

 the dispersal and loss of the collection of Willows ; and this paragraph is 

 intended more as a suggestion to present and future Curators, and as a 

 rebuke to certain of their predecessors, than as a guide to a " Willow 

 Garden " which might, but which does not, exist. 



The Willow is a tree of great economic value in the vicinity of 



4 



