Salix 1759 



The crack willow is probably wild in marshy ground in Britain from Perthshire 

 southwards ; but it is extremely difficult to decide in what stations it is really 

 indigenous. It is supposed to have been introduced^ into Ireland, where however 

 it is often seen as a planted tree. (A. H.) 



This species occasionally attains as great dimensions as S. alba. In Gard. 

 Chron. i. 447 (1874), E. Lees figures some remarkable old willows. The largest 

 of these {S. fragilis) grew in the Wye valley near Ross, and was over 70 ft. in 

 height, with a girth of 24 ft. at two feet from the ground. Mr. H, Marshall can find 

 no trace of this tree at the present time. 



Jackson, Syon House Trees and Shrubs, 29 (1910), mentions an immense tree 

 on the south side of the lake in a decaying condition. " Judging from the length of 

 the bole, which is now prostrate, this may well have been the specimen mentioned 

 by Loudon^ (p. 1521) as being 89 ft. high and about 13 ft. in girth, and called by him 

 Salix Russelliana." 



In Messrs. Samson's nursery at Kilmarnock there was a crack willow, which in 

 1904 measured, according to Mr. Renwick, 80 ft. high, with a bole 22 ft. in length 

 and girthing 16 ft. i in. at five feet from the ground. This tree was blown down in 

 November 191 1, when the trunk was found to be much decayed at the heart. No 

 shoots have sprung from the root since. Mr. Renwick ' records a tree at Bruntwood 

 Mains near Galston, Ayrshire, which measured 13 ft. i in. in girth in 1902, when it 

 was reputed to have been 62 years old. (H. J. E.) 



SALIX ALBA, White Willow 



Salix alba, Linnseus, Sp. PI. 1021 (1753); Smith, Eng. Bot. t. 2430 (1812), Eng. Flora, iv. 231 

 (1828); Forbes, Sal. Woburn. 271, t. 136 (1829); Loudon, Arb. et Frut. Brit. iii. 1522 (1838); 

 Andersson, Monog. Salic. 47 (1863), and in De Candolle, Frod. xvi. 2, p. 211 (1868) ; Willkomm, 

 Forstliche Flora, 469 (1887); Buchanan White, in Journ. Linn. Soc. {Bot.) xxvii. 370 (1890); 

 Mathieu, Flore Forestiere, 451 (1897); Camus, Monog. des Saules, 69 (1904). 



A tree, attaining about 90 ft. in height and 20 ft. in girth, with more or less 

 ascending branches, but with spreading or pendulous ultimate branchlets. Bark 

 less deeply fissured than in S. fragilis, the depressions between the ridges being 

 narrower and shallower than in that species. Young branchlets covered with 

 whitish appressed pubescence, partly retained in winter and in the following year. 

 Buds flattened, appressed against the twig, silky pubescent. Leaves lanceolate, 

 2 to 2^ in. long, rarely exceeding ^ in. in width, tapering to a long acuminate, 

 straight or curved apex ; upper surface greyish green, more or less covered with 

 silky white appressed pubescence ; lower surface whitish, densely covered with 

 similar pubescence ; margin densely ciliate, and with minute glandular serrations ; 

 petiole short, pubescent. 



Catkins, appearing with the leaves, on short lateral leafy branchlets ; axis 

 densely tomentose ; flowers crowded. Staminate catkins, about i^ in, long ; 



1 Praeger, in Proc. Roy. Irish Acad. vii. 283 (1901). 



2 Loudon's identifications of these large willows are very uncertain. 



3 Trans. Nat. Hist. Soc, Glasgow, vi. pt. iii. 353 (1902). 



