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28 



SALIX- Willow. 



S. ALBA var SPLENDENS. — In the Botanic Garden at St. Peters- 

 burg there is a fine specimen of this bright silvery willow, a tree 

 about 15 inches in diameter, and 35 feet high, without any dead 

 wood about it ; a tree of great ornamental beauty in contrast with 

 dark foliaged trees like S. Canifolia. Throughout Russia we find 

 willows more or less of this shade of color. In France and Cen- 

 tral Europe many willows have this bright silvery tint. We in- 

 tended to try the alba Iticophylla of Messrs. Simon-Louis, at Metz, 

 until we found at St. Petersburg a variety whose hardiness was 

 already tested for us. 



S. ALBA of the Volga. — The first groves of this I saw were on 

 low land on the bank of the Volga, some distance below Nijni 

 Novgorod ; lofty trees with straight narrow trunks, growing 

 quite close, and therefore without lower branches. The foliage is 

 quite narrow and feathery, the branches pendulous. Single trees 

 maintain the same straight trunk. At several points on the Volga 

 I asked what variety it was, and was told Salix alba. It is also 

 known as '* vertla." How different is the Salix alba of Western 

 Europe, the great screen, wind-break and snow-break tree of the 

 prairie States. This Volga willow is not suited for these purposes, 

 but is a straight growing timber tree of great height, with feathery 

 foliage. 



S. ACUTiFOLiA. — This is the favorite willow for planting to stay 

 drifting sands. In Mantchuria, in the woods, it is a large tree 

 with a trunk 4 feet in diameter, used by the natives for canoes. In 

 cold open exposures it is a mere shrub. It is the best weeper 

 among the willows in the Botanic Garden at St. Petersburg. " ^ '■ 



Of others, S. Cali/ornica, a small, broad leaved, very bright sil- 

 very little shrub, quite hardy at Proskau, quite hardy, top grafted 

 even, with Mr. Hoser at Warsaw. S. cuspidata becomes a large 

 handsome bush. It has a laurel leaf and yellow twigs, quite 

 hardy at St. Petersburg. S. fragilis is, I believe, a widei_^ 

 scattered tree in North Europe and Asia. Large canoes are made 

 of it in Amur. Rather ornamental and quite hardy. 



