90 TREES IN NATURE, MYTH & ART 



Even this weight of tradition makes it diffi- 

 cult for us to have other than pleasant thoughts 

 in looking at a willow. The weeping-willow 

 itself is singularly graceful. It in no wise pe- 

 culiarly belongs to the banks of the Euphrates, 

 but is native to Japan and other parts of Asia. 

 The large varieties with which we are most 

 familiar, the white willow, so called from the 

 character of its leaves, and the crack willow, a 

 name due to its brittle branches and twigs — 

 which often litter my garden after a storm — are 

 valuable ''assets" to the landscape painter, the 

 long narrow leaves, one of the chief peculiarities 

 of the willow tribe, reflecting the light so 

 brokenly that the trees, even more than the 

 ash, have the appearance of being seen through 

 a gauzy veil. This, as we shall note hereafter, 

 is a quality that appeals to the latest school of 

 landscape painting more than it could appeal 

 to the earlier ones, which saw beauty mainly in 

 mass of colour and light and shade, or marvel- 

 lous detail, and had little love for the more 

 subtle effects of light. Thus the Rev. W. 

 Gilpin, brother of Sawrey Gilpin, the animal 

 painter, who wrote about picturesque beauty, 

 thought little of the pictorial value of the willow, 



