84 TREE ANCESTORS 



They are found from tidewater to the snowHne of mountains and 

 from the Arctic through Canada and the United States to the Gulf, 

 and from the Alantic to the Paciiic. They occur in the West Indies 

 and Central America and southward to the Chilean Andes. In 

 the Old World they range from Arctic Europe and Asia southward 

 over both of those continents to Madagascar and South Africa, 

 and from the Himalayan region southeastward through Malayasia 

 to Java. 



Aside from the older uses of willow as cover to prevent erosion 

 or for basketry or charcoal, its utilization for lumbering has had a 

 relatively modern development. At the present time low grades 

 are largely used for box and cooperage material while the higher 

 grades are employed for furniture drawers and backing, as well 

 as for refrigerators, cabinet work and cheap furniture. Willow 

 planking is satisfactory for purposes where strength is not required, 

 since it does not warp, splinter or check, and this property deter- 

 mines its use for boat parts such as keels, paddles, etc., and for ath- 

 letic goods, cutting boards, toys, etc. Large quantities are also 

 consumed every year by excelsior mills. 



The oldest known willows, not certainly identified, are recorded, 

 along with the early representatives of other dicotyledonous plants, 

 from the late Lower Cretaceous of Portugal. During the earher 

 part of the Upper Cretaceous, the time when the remains of the 

 higher or socalled flowering plants first become prominent in the 

 geological record, a great many species of supposed willows have 

 been found. Upwards of a score of forms have been described, 

 and the ancestral stock during these early days must have pos- 

 sessed some of the vitality that marks the recent forms, for it spread 

 rapidly over North America as well as Europe and probably over 

 Asia as well, although there are no kno\\ii records from the last 

 continent. It should be noted that four-fifths of the known Cre- 

 taceous species are North American and that none have been found 

 in the prohfic Cretaceous plant beds of Greenland, although pop- 

 lars appear to have been abundant at that time in the far North. 



Botanists are divided in their interpretation of the willow flower, 

 some regarding its simphcity as a primitive character and others 



