118 THE POPLAE AND THE WILLOW. 



packing-cases. The wood of the aspen is much 

 more combustible than that of the other English 

 poplars ; and that of the nigra is much liked for 

 bowls, platters, and butchers' trays. 



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

 Salix fragilis, and the white willow, Salix alba, are 

 probably, in the full sense of the word, indigenous. 

 Our English climate suits these trees well, as also 

 the smaller kinds familiarly known as osiers and 

 withies, which useful contributions to the necessities 

 of the basket-maker are chiefly furnished by the Sa- 

 lix 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 same 

 that was used here two thousand years ago. No one 

 after this will demur to the osier, at all events, being 

 native. The word in question is one of the very few 

 ancient British terms that have lived into our own 

 modern English. It is preserved in its Celtic form 

 by the Eoman poet Martial, one of whose epigrams, 

 freely rendered, runs as follows : 



From Britain's painted sons I came, 

 And " basket " is my barbarous name ; 

 But now I am so modish grown, 

 That Eome would claim me for her own ! 



The shields and coracles of the ancient Britons 

 were also made of wicker, osier-work having appa- 

 rently been with this rude and simple people just 



