THE WILLOW. 311 
several hundred species or varieties. For our purpose it is 
only necessary in this article to notice a few of the more pro- 
minent kinds, best adapted for the purposes for which the 
tree is useful. 
For the produce of timber there are three species, which, 
together with their allied varieties, are generally recognised, 
and deserve notice. They attain the ordinary size of timber 
trees, and being indigenous in this country, they are extremely 
hardy, and grow to some size in soil of almost any descrip- 
tion, viz, Salix caprea (L.), 8. alba (L.), and S. Russelliana 
(Smith). 
S8.caprea, the Goat Willow, or Sallow, is a common tree,found 
indigenous in waste ground, particularly in cold and marshy 
situations. In rich wet ground, a two-year-old seedling plant 
will sometimes produce several shoots three or four feet high ; 
and under the most inhospitable circumstances it generally 
ripens its growth to the uppermost bud. 
This tree and its varieties are among the broadest-leaved of 
the willow tribe. The vigorous young shoots have a dark- 
brown glossy bark, which in spring time forms a fine contrast 
with the buds, which are white and prominent ; this, together 
with the profusion of catkins displayed by the male plant 
during the opening up of the season, give the tree a gay 
appearance, and render it one of the most ornamental of the 
genus. The goat willow is a valuable tree for coppice, where 
there is a demand for hoops, poles, rods for crates, sheep 
fences, or for similar purposes, and where it may be cut down 
every three or four. years; during a short period no other 
tree will produce so great a bulk of fagot-wood. On a con- 
genial soil, a healthy stock will sometimes in one season 
produce a sheaf of straight clean shoots eight to twelve feet 
long, and many of them an inch in diameter, at a yard from 
the ground. ‘This species frequently attains the height of 
forty or fifty feet, with a trunk one and a half to two feet 
in diameter. It affords a valuable shelter in maritime situa- 
tions, withstanding the influence of the sea better than 
most plants, and its timber is reckoned the best of any of the 
