60 THE POPLAR AND THE WILLOW. 



stolpn away unfledged. But she weeps throughout the night, and 

 seated on a bough, still renews her sorrowful song, and fills all the air 

 with piteous wailings." 



Similarly, with the willow we find connected, among others, the 

 beautiful fable of Arethusa, whose bathing in a stream overhung with 

 these trees, mingled with poplars, led to the events that caused her 

 transformation into the spring which retains her name to the present 

 moment. Transferring our interest from the remote past to the 

 days of Hamlet, how beautifully again is the willow introduced in the 

 account of the death of Ophelia : 



" There is a willow grows ascant the brook, 

 That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream ; 



***** 



There on the pendent boughs her coronet weeds, 



Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke ; 



When down her weedy trophies, and herself, 



Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide, 



And mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up, 



Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes, 



As one incapable of her own distress ; 



Or like a creature native and indued 



Within that element. But long it could not be, 



Till that her garments, heavy with their drink, 



Pull'd the poor wretch from her melodious lay, 



To muddy death." 



The great botanical distinction between the willow and poplar, 

 compared with all other trees of ordinary occurrence, has been men- 

 tioned above. The discrimination of the particular kinds of willow is 

 not so easy, the species being numerous. The larger kinds, natives of 

 Great Britain, may be told by their very long and narrow leaves, taper- 

 ing to each extremity. In the common willow, Salixfragilis, so named 

 from the readiness with which the young branches break away from the 

 main bough, the leaves are green, without admixture of grey : in the 

 white willow, Salix alba, on the other hand, every leaf is clothed on 

 both surfaces with white and silky hairs, which give it the hoary 

 appearance alluded to it by the poets. 



Besides these, there is the shining bay-leaved willow, Salir pentandra, 

 which has all the gloss and lustre of some fine evergreen, and exudes a 

 delightful aromatic odour, from glands along the edges of the leaves. 

 The large and yellow catkins contribute also to render this tree very 

 ornamental in early summer. The poplars are few in number, and at 

 once told by the shape and colour of their leaves. Those of the abele, 



