WHITE, OR COMMON HUNTINGDON WILLOW. 



161 



ance. Stamens hairy, two to a flower, the ovary glabrous, 

 flowers loosely disposed in the catkin. This species, which 

 may justly be considered the finest, and perhaps the most 

 elegant of the tree Willows, s 

 grows naturally to a very 

 great size, with an outline, 

 very frequently, of impos- 

 ing elegance and picturesque 

 effect, and which, as Gilpin 

 observes, fits it to appear 

 in any rural scene. Such is 

 its effect where it is left to 

 its free growth, and where 

 the disfiguring custom of 

 pollarding, so common in 

 the fenny parts of England, is either unknown or rarely 

 practised. In the north of England and Scotland, where 

 mineral fuel is cheap and plentiful, and no necessity exists 

 for the trimming and pollarding system, very fine examples 

 of this tree are often met with, and, when growing in 

 an appropriate situation, such as on the banks of a river, 

 the margin of a purling brook, or in one of our low, 

 sheltered, and sunny haughs, it forms a beautiful and 

 interesting feature, its silvery and plume-like foliage giving 

 an air of lightness and grace to the landscape, and pro- 

 ducing, by its contrast with foliage of a deeper tint, that 

 effect so agreeable to those who view such scenes with 

 the eye and feeling of an artist. 



Hitherto the Sal. alba as well as the Sal. Russelliana do 

 not appear to have been cultivated to the extent they so 

 well deserve, considering the value of their produce, and 

 that they make a more rapid and profitable return to the 



M 



