122 LONDON TREES 



7 inches. Another and still larger tree of the kind is 

 growing by the lake- side near York Bridge in Regent's 

 Park. 



The Weeping Willow (S. babylonicd). In most of 

 the parks and open spaces may be found specimens of 

 the Weeping Willow, which for planting by the water 

 margin has few equals from an ornamental point of view. 



By the lake-side in St. James's Park the Weeping 

 Willow has attained to a large size, the soil and other 

 conditions being evidently favourable to its growth. 

 The date of introduction of the Weeping Willow is 

 uncertain, some giving the credit to Mr. Vernden, an 

 English merchant at Aleppo, who as recently as 1730 

 sent it to his residence at Twickenham Park, where it 

 is on record it was seen growing by Peter Collinson 

 in 1748. From another account Pope gets the credit 

 of having planted the first Weeping Willow ever seen 

 in this country. Certainly in the garden of * Pope's 

 Villa ' at Twickenham, the retreat in which the poet 

 passed the latter years of his life, a noble Weeping 

 Willow was growing late in the eighteenth century. 

 The subsequent owner of the villa, according to 

 an account in the * St. James's Chronicle' of 1801, 

 finding it inconvenient to show the tree to numerous 

 visitors, had it cut down. * Being with Lady Suffolk 

 at the time that she received a package of plants from 

 Turkey, Pope noticed that one of the withes with 

 which it was bound was still green. He planted it in 

 his garden, where it struck root readily, and as it 

 developed its graceful growth became his favourite 

 tree.' The date of its introduction given in the 

 ' Hortus Kewensis ' is 1692. 



Be the date of its introduction what it may, the 

 Weeping or Babylonian Willow forms an element of 



