62 



THE POPLAK AND THE WILLOW. 



name of "white" to certain varieties of grapes; and of "black-thorn" 

 to the snowy-flowered sloe, the epithet in this latter case signifying 

 leafless, as opposed to leafy. Whether all three of the European 

 poplars be aboriginally and veritably British is, after all, not quite 

 decided. These trees extend so far to the East, and so early attracted 

 the attention of travellers and transplanters, that it is quite possible 

 they may have been introduced in the first place from Asia. Support 

 is furnished to this idea by the etymology of the name, which would 

 seem to be radically identical with "peepul," the name given in India 



to the sacred fig, Ficus religwsa, and which latter would be extended to 

 the poplar because of the resemblance, as to general figure, in the leaf, 

 though the trees are not in any degree related in regard to structure. 

 The willows, that is to say, the "crack" willow, Salixfragilis, and 

 the white willow, Salix alba, are probably, in the full sense of the word, 

 indigenous. Our English climate suits these trees well, together with 

 the smaller kinds familiarly known as osiers and withies, which useful 

 contributions to the necessities of the basket-maker are chiefly furnished 

 by the Salix viminalis. How long basket-making from osiers has been 

 practised in our island, may be judged of from the fact that the very 

 word "basket," is, with a trifling difference in the spelling, the very 



