CHAP. C 



CHAP. CIII. SALIC A V CE/E. S^LIX. 1591 



Host Sal. Austr. : in Eng. Hot., the female, In fruit and flower'; and bractea (scale) of the male. 

 Both sexes were living, in 1SJH, in the Twickenham Botanic Garden. 



Engravings. Hayne Abbild., t. 175.; Eng. Bot., t. 1907.; Sal. Wob., No. 62.; and Host Sal. 

 Austr., 1. t.104.; our Jig. 1;549. ; and fig. 62. in p. 1615. 



Spec. Char., $c. Leaves orbicular, serrated, reticulated with veins; very 

 glabrous and shining on both sides. Ovary stalked, ovate-lanceolate, 

 glabrous. (Smith Eng. Fl.) A native of Britain, on the Welsh and High 

 land mountains ; flowering there in June, but, in the 

 willow garden at Woburn Abbey, before the expansion 

 of the leaves. It is a native, also, of various parts of 

 Europe; also, according to Pursh, of North America. 

 In the Companion to the Botanical Magazine, it is 

 stated that S. herbacea exceeds in the elevation of 

 its habitat every other shrub in Britain (p. 89.) ; and 

 that few hills of 800 or 900 yards in Britain are 

 without S. herbacea, whilst reticulata is probably 

 limited to the Scottish Highlands, and not very 

 plentiful there." (p. 222.) S. herbacea is the least 

 of British willows, and, according to Sir J. E. Smith, the least of all 

 shrubs. Dr. Clarke, in his Scandinavia, calls it a perfect tree in minia- 

 ture; so small, that it may be taken up, and root, trunk, and branches 

 spread out in a small pocket-book. According to Hooker (Br. FI. y 

 ed. 2.), it is not " so small as is generally supposed, for its stems divide 

 and creep below the surface of the earth, scarcely rising 1 in. above it." In 

 ed. 3., it is stated, on the authority of Dr. Graham, that, " in the Bo- 

 tanic Garden of Edinburgh it has acquired a prostrate woody stem, 2 ft. to 

 3 ft. long, and as thick as the little finger." Under the head Varieties, 

 we have noticed some plants which may belong to this species, and 

 which have stems 2 ft. or 3 ft. high. The leaves of S. herbacea are em- 

 ployed, in Iceland, in the tanning of leather. (Lindl. Nat. Syst. Bot.} S. 

 herbacea is called by the Laplanders the ptarmigan leaf. ( Wahlenberg, 

 quoted in Eng. JFY.) In Switzerland, M. Alphonse De Candolle observes, 

 " some species of willow (S. retusa, herbacea, and reticulata) spread over 

 the uneven surface of the soil ; and, as their branches are often covered 

 with the earth, which the heavy rains wash over them, they present the 

 singular phenomenon of trees which are more or less subterranean. The 

 extremities of these branches form, sometimes, a kind of turf; and the 

 astonished traveller finds himself, as we may say, walking on the top of a 

 tree. The alix herbacea is the species that most frequently presents this 

 remarkable appearance, because it generally grows on steep slopes of loose 

 soil, particularly among the fragments of schistus, that are easily penetrated 

 by the melting snow and the rain." (Gard. Mag., xii. p. 235.) There are 

 plants at Henfield. 



? Varieties. " A very remarkable kind of willow, from Sutherland, which has 

 all the characters of S. herbacea, except that it grows 2 ft. high, has been 

 sent to me by Dr. Graham, and is now alive in my garden." (Borrer in a 

 letter.) An unusually large variety was found by Mr. Templeton on the 

 top of Slieve-Nance, in the county of Antrim, Ireland, similar to some 

 of the large varieties gathered by Mr. M'Nab of Edinburgh on the moun- 

 tains of Sutherland. Mr. Moore lately sent Mr. Mackay very luxuriant 

 specimens from Dark Mountain, in the county of Deny, Ireland. (Fl. 

 Hibern., pt. 1. p. 253.) 



j 162. POLARIS Wahlenb. The Polar Willow. 



Identification. Wahlenb. Suec., p. 636. ; Fl. Lapp., p. 261. ; Koch Comm., p. 64. ; Forbes in Sal. 



Wob., No. 63. 



The Sexes. The female is described and figured in Sal. Wob. 

 Engravings. Wahl. Fl. Lapp., t. 13. f. 1. ; Sal. Wob., No. 63. ; our figs. 1350. and 1351. ; and fig. 63. 



in p. 1615. 



Spec. Char.,$c. Leaves ovate, very obtuse, nearly entire, glabrous. Catkins 

 of few flowers. Stem filiform, or thread-shaped. (Wahlenberg Fl. L.) A 



