THE WILLOWS 29 



Schultz. The Bay-leaved Willow is a beautiful 

 many-stemmed shrub, six or eight feet high, or a 

 tree of twenty feet. The young bark is brown, har- 

 monising with the broad, polished leaves, whose 

 fragrance gives the plant its name ; and the species 

 is noticeable on the banks of our northern rivers as 

 the latest of the Willows in flowering. 



Of the Diandrce, the sub-series Fragiles and 

 A Ibce correspond to Linnseus's species S. fragilis, the 

 Crack Willow, and S. alba, the White Willow. The 

 first of these two groups has " semi-cordate " stipules, 

 stalked capsules, and forked stigmas, and includes 

 S. fragilis and its possible hybrids, 8. decip'iens Sm. 

 and S. Russelliana Sm., which differ mainly in the 

 character of the young bark and of the leaves. S. 

 fragilis L. has very smooth, yellow-brown twigs, 

 that are brittle in spring, and "elliptic-lanceolate" 

 leaves, sometimes six inches long. S. decipiens 

 seems only a slight variation which has smooth 

 orange or crimson twigs, turning to a reddish brown, 

 and leaves sometimes not over three inches in length. 



These two forms, though they are commonly 

 pollarded as Osiers, will grow into trees as large 

 as the beautiful Bedford Willow (S. Russelliana), 

 which has smooth, green, flexible twigs and long 

 tapering leaves, very glaucous on their lower surfaces, 

 and is always associated with Dr. Johnson, since his 

 favourite tree, near Lichfield, finally blown down in 

 1829, was a magnificent specimen of this variety, 

 twenty-one feet in girth. Specialists are, however, in 

 doubt as to its identity, considering it either identical 

 with S. fragilis or and this is the more general view 



