224 ENGLISH BOTANY. 
Var. a, genuina. 
Leaves strapshaped. Style as long as or longer than the stigmas; 
stigmas undivided. 
Var. 8, intricata. Leefe. 
Leaves lanccolate-strapshaped. Capsule shorter and broader than 
in var. a. Style shorter than the stigmas; stigmas very long, gene- 
rally cleft. 
By the sides of streams and in moist meadows and in osier beds. 
Very common, and generally distributed, except in the north of 
Scotland. Considered a doubtful native of Ireland. 
England, Scotland, Ireland. Shrub or tree. Spring. 
A bush or small tree, rarely above 10 feet high, but occasionally 
attaining to 20 or 30 feet, with very long straight virgate branches, 
more or less silky-downy when young, at length polished and olive or 
chestnut. Leaves very numerous, 4 inches to 1 toot long, with short 
petioles. Buds thinly downy. Male catkins 2 to 1} inch long. 
Catkin-scales brown, darker towards the apex. Anthers_ bright 
yellow. Female catkins ¢ to 1 inch in flower, lengthening in fruit. 
Ovary } inch long, at first almost sessile, afterwards with a stalk which 
is shorter than the narrow long incurved nectary. 
The length of the style and stigmas are liable to a slight variation, 
and also the width of the leaves. On the whole this is one of the 
best marked species of the genus Salix. Judging from the Rev. Mr. 
Leefe’s specimens, I am unable to separate his vars. intricata and 
stipularis. 
Common Osier. 
French, Saule & longues feuilles. German, Korb- Weide. 
This is the true osier, and is cultivated extensively on account of its long pliant 
shoots, which exceed in length those of any other species. The use of willows in 
basket-making seems to be of very ancient date. Martial, in a well-known verse, 
alludes to the practice by the ancient Britons. Translated it reads thus :-— 
“From Britain's painted sons I came, 
And basket is my barbarous name, 
But now I am so modish grown, 
That Rome would claim me for her own.” 
The Druids are said to have formed huge figures of wicker-work, which on great 
occasions were filled with criminals and set fire to; but these baskets, according to 
Burnet and others, were made from twigs of the oak, and not of the willow. The 
Celtic Britons used the willow twigs, however, for constructing their skin-covered 
boats and shields. The present species of willow was cultivated in Holland from the 
first establishment of the herring fishery in that country in 1164, for the purpose of 
