AMENTIFERE. 213 
while it has the advantage of burning well while green. Willow charcoal is esteemed 
for gunpowder, and at one time was used to the exclusion of all other. The wood 
loses half its weight in drying, and sometimes even more. The bark, which is thick 
and full of cracks, is in nearly as great repute for tanning as that of the oak; it is also 
used in medicine, in the cure of agues, as a substitute for cinchona. According to 
Gilpin, this is one of the few willows which are “ beautiful, and fit to appear in the 
decoration of any rural scene.” The silvery grey of the foliage, caused by the closely- 
pressed silky hairs, renders this tree remarkable, and conspicuous from a long dis- 
tance ; and when, as often happens, it fringes rivers, it enables us to trace their course 
across the country—a circumstance ingeniously made use of by landscape-painters. 
The peculiar colour and the plum-like character of the branches give it also an air of 
lightness and grace which wonderfully adds to the beauty of the scenery, the contrast 
with trees of deeper tint producing an effect at once singular and agreeable. The 
white willow occasionally attains a very large size; one near Bury St. Edmund’s is 
nearly eighty feet high, while the stem measures nineteen feet in girth: it is called 
the Abbot’s Willow, and is supposed to have been planted before the dissolution of the 
monastery in the reign of Henry VII. This is a rare instance of longevity in the 
willow, for it generally becomes hollow after thirty or forty years, and seldom survives 
more than half a century. It grows best in a moist but well drained soil, and, 
though liking the neighbourhood of water, should not have its roots constantly 
immersed. 
The blue willow grows more rapidly than the common kind, and has sometimes in a 
few years produced an amount of timber never obtained from any other tree. 
Mr. Loudon says that the golden willow is readily distinguished from all others by. 
the bright yellow colour of its branches. It is much cultivated for basket-work, tying, 
&c., aud also as an ornamental shrub or tree. The rods, being tough and flexible, 
“are fit for many purposes of basket-work, as well as for package.” As an orna- 
mental tree, it is very striking in the winter season, especially among evergreens. In 
the English garden at Munich extensive masses of this willow are placed in contrast 
with masses of the white-barked honeysuckle, the red-barked dogwood, and the brown- 
barked spirwa. The eflect in the winter season is very striking, and deserves 
imitation. 
Group II.—TRIANDR&. 
Catkin-scales persistent. Stamens 3. 
SPECIES (?) VI-SALIX UNDULATA, Eivh. 
Piate MCCCXIL. 
Reich. Ic. Fl. Germ. et Helv. Vol. XI. Tab. DCVI. Fig. 1261. 
Anders. Mon. Sal. p. 28. 
S. triandra-alba, Wimm. Sal. Europ. p. 144. 
S. triandra-viminalis, 6 undulata (exclude $), Wimm. Denkschr. d. Schles. Ges. 
p. 157. 
8. lanceolata, Sm. Engl. Bot. ed. i. No. 1456, and Engl. Fl. Vol. IV. p. 168. 
Leaves lanceolate-strapshaped or elliptical-strapshaped, longly acu- 
minate, callous-serrate, dark green and shining above, paler below, 
at length glabrous on both sides, and subcoriaceous. Stipules half- 
