SALIX 477 



French traveller Tourncfort, towards the end of the seventeenth century. 

 Peter Collinson says the original weeping willow was brought to England 

 about 1730 by "Mr Vernon, Turkey Merchant at Aleppo, from the river 

 Euphrates, and planted at his seat at Twickenham Park, where I saw it in 

 1748." There is also a story that Alexander Pope was one day in the company 

 of Lady Suffolk, when she received a parcel from Spain tied up by willow 

 twigs, and that, noticing one of the twigs was alive, he begged it, and planted 

 it at Twickenham, where it grew into the celebrated weeping willow of his 

 villa garden. This has been said to be the first Salix babylonica introduced 

 to England, but no doubt Mr Vernon has the prior claim. For a long 

 time only the female tree was known, and even now it is much the more 

 common. 



S. babylonica is a popular waterside tree, and its beauty is nowhere so 

 telling as by the side of a stream or lake. The banks of the Thames above 

 Richmond owe much of their charm to it. An impetus to its cultivation was 

 given about 1823 through the introduction from St Helena of weeping 

 willows raised from a tree in that island which Napoleon had loved and 

 under which he was buried. Numerous descendants of this tree are still 

 scattered over the country. (See plate, vol. i., p. 64.) 



Van ANNULARIS, Ascherson (S. crispa, Hort.\ A curious form whose 

 leaves are twisted into rings or spirally curled. It has little beauty. 



S. BEBBIANA, Sargent. 



(S rostrata, Richards (not of Thuillier).) 



A shrub, rarely a small tree, up to 25 ft. high, young shoots covered at 

 first with grey down, becoming smooth and dark brown. Leaves usually 

 more or less obovate, sometimes oval or lance-shaped ; mostly tapered but 

 sometimes rounded at the base, short-pointed ; I to 3 ins. long, ^ to I in. 

 wide ; distantly toothed or almost entire ; dull green above, blue white and 

 more or less downy beneath , stalk 5- to ^ in. long. It is a native of high 

 latitudes in N. America, stretching right across the continent. A male plant 

 introduced to Kew.from the Arnold Arboretum has cylindrical catkins about 

 i in. long ; stamens two, with smooth stalks. It belongs to the Caprea 

 group. 



S. BOCKII, Diets. 



A dwarf shrub of neat habit, probably 3 to 4 ft. high ; young shoots 

 slender, covered with a dense grey down. Leaves oblong or obovate, 

 tapered to a short stalk at the base, either rounded or pointed at the apex ; 

 margins entire or occasionally sparsely toothed, recurved ; to in. long, 

 to in. wide ; dark bright green above, blue-white beneath and covered 

 with silky hairs. Catkins produced in late summer and autumn from the 

 leaf-axils of the current year's growth ; females 1^ ins. long, \ in. broad ; 

 males shorter. Stamens two, but with their stalks united to the summit (as 

 in S.'purpurea) ; bracts of catkins narrowly lanceolate and pointed. 



A native of Western Szechuen, China, and abundant in river-beds up to 

 9000 ft. It was introduced to the Arnold Arboretum by Wilson by means of 

 cuttings in 1908-9, and I saw it there in 1910. A plant then obtained for 

 Kew was the first introduced to this country. It has flowered each October 

 since. It is a pretty bush, the male, Mr Wilson informs me, one of the most 

 ornamental of willows in its flowers. Altogether it promises to be one of 

 the most attractive of dwarf sorts. It has been confused with S. VARIEGATA, 

 Franchet, a nearly allied species, which has its leaves quite smooth by the 



