175 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 



Only female trees are known in cultivation. Catkins terminating branchlets 

 with one, two, or three leaves, very slender, green, . curved, about i in. long ; axis 

 pubescent ; scale about rds the length of the ovary, pilose at the base, ciliate, 

 ovate-acuminate ; ovary sub-sessile, about J$ in. long, ovate, glabrous, ending in a 

 very short style, which is divided into two stigmatic arms, each of which is bilobed ; 

 gland posterior, quadrate, emarginate or bilobed. 



Variety and Hybrids 



1. The following variety is known in cultivation : 



i. Var. annularis, Ascherson, Fl. Brandenburg, 630 (1864). 



Var. crispa, Loudon, Arb. et Frut Brit. Hi. 15 14 (1838). 

 Salix annularis, Forbes, Sal. Woburn. 41, t. 21 (1829). 



Leaves folded and rolled up, so as to form a ring or spiral, otherwise as in the 

 type. This remarkable variety, which is called the ring-leaved willow, is of unknown 

 origin ; ' but undoubtedly is a sport of S. babylonica, and like it is a female tree. 

 W. Masters of Canterbury stated 2 that his father gave fifteen shillings for a plant 

 6 in. high, but had no clue as to where or how the variety had originated. He 

 mentions an instance of a ring-leaved willow, which after being planted twenty 

 years, produced a single branch with leaves of the ordinary form, which continued 

 to be borne for years afterwards on the same branch and its ramifications. 



There is a fine specimen on the lawn near the Palm House at Kew, which was, 

 in 191 2, 56 ft. high with a trunk 11 ft. in girth at three and a half feet from the 

 ground, above which it divides into two stems. Lord Kesteven measured in 1906 a 

 fine specimen, 57 ft. by 7 ft., on a farm near Caythorpe, Grantham. 



1 1. The following trees, often considered to be varieties of S. babylonica, are 

 probably hybrids : 



2. Salix Salamonii, Carriere, in Rev. Hort. xl. 463 (1869) and xlix. 444 (1877). 

 Salix babylonica Salamonii, Simon-Louis, Cat. 1 86 9, p. 85 ; Carriere, in Rev. Hort. xliv. 115(1872). 



A tree with a tall straight stem, and ascending branches, forming when young 

 a pyramidal crown ; ultimate branchlets pendulous, but not so long as in S. baby- 

 lonica. Young branchlets pubescent near the nodes, becoming glabrous. Leaves 

 similar in shape, size, and colour to those of 6". babylonica, but pubescent with 

 scattered appressed long hairs on both surfaces. Only pistillate trees are known ; 

 catkins similar to those of S. babylonica, but with the axis more pubescent and the 

 scales furnished with long cilia. 



This remarkable tree, which is supposed to be a cross 3 between S. babylonica 

 and S. alba, is very distinct in habit, forming when young a handsome pyramidal 

 tree, which grows with astonishing vigour and is not injured in our climate by frost 



1 Dode, in Bull. Soc. Dend. France, 1909, p. 153, believes that this may have originated from a witches' broom ; and 

 states that he obtained a similar sport as a cutting, which was taken from an abnormal growth on a Salix alba. 



s Gard. Chron. 1855, p. 726. Cf. Darwin, Animals and Tlants under Domestication, i. 408 (1890). 



3 Schneider, Laubhohkundc, i. 36, note (1904), supposes it to be identical with S. sepulcralis, Simonkai, in Termes. Fiii. 

 xii. 157 (1890), said to have been found in Hungary. Camus, Monog. Saules, 235 (1904), identifies with the last-named, 

 S. alba, var. tristis, Trautvetter, Fl. All. iv. 255 (1833), described from an Altai specimen. 



