TREES GROWING NEAR WATER. 65 



it in the ground by the river's bank. It rooted, and soon grew 

 to be the delight of Pope and his friends. Were it still stand- 

 ing it would be regarded with peculiar interest ; for it was the 

 ancestor of all those that have since lived in Europe and Amer- 

 ica. In 1775 a young British officer who went to Boston took 

 with him, carefully wrapped in oiled silk, a twig from Pope's 

 willow. His expectations of settling peacefully in the new 

 world were not as speedily fulfilled as he had anticipated, and 

 so he presented the twig to Mr. Custis, the step-son of General 

 Washington, who planted it near his home at Abingdon, Vir- 

 ginia. There it took kindly to the soil and grew vigourously. 

 It was a child of Pope's willow, and the first one to strike 

 root in America. Later, in 1790, General Gates took a twig 

 from the tree and planted it at the entrance to the farm he 

 had bought on Manhattan Island. It also grew to a consider- 

 able size, and for many years was familiarly known as Gates' 

 weeping willow. The entrance to the farm where it stood is 

 now Third avenue and Twenty-second street. 



It is believed that the staminate trees have never been intro- 

 duced into this country, and the willow is, therefore, not able 

 to reproduce itself by seed. The twigs of S. Babylonica have 

 been used as divining rods, and Herodotus mentions that the 

 Scythians found them excellent for this purpose. 



S. Babylonica annularis, hoop willow, is known by the pecu- 

 liarity of its leaves. They curve and recurve into rings. 



WHITE WILLOW. HUNTINGTON WILLOW. 



Salix alba. 



FAMILY SHAPE HEIGHT RANGE TIME OF BLOOM 



Willow. Thick set, branches, 50-90 feet. Introduced, New York April, May. 

 ascending. and Penn . 



Bark: grey; rough. Twigs: olive-green, not yellowish; brittle. Stipules'. 

 lanceolate ; deciduous. Leaves : simple ; alternate ; with very short peti- 

 oles ; lanceolate to linear, tapering at both ends ; sharply serrate ; pubescent on 

 both surfaces, the lower one retaining its white, velvety hairs even when ma- 

 ture. Catkins : growing at the end of the season's short, leafy shoots. 



Although generally familiar and common throughout a con- 



