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most difficult plants to separate into species. As they 

 are generally propagated from time to time by cuttings 

 from one tree, it often happens that entire rows of the 

 European willows, as we see them by the roadside, or 

 all of the willows in a district, it may be, are confined 

 to one sex. I think that all of the old trees at the 

 Willows are males. The tall willow at the parting of 

 the Swampacott road on the turnpike, is a golden 

 twigged willow, a variety (vitellina) of the white willow. 

 It is, I believe, a female tree. The sexes of the 

 willows can be determined in the spring and at that 

 time only. The male flowers show golden yellow pollen 

 on the catkins, while the female flowers are simply 

 light green or whitish. There is an immense white 

 willow at the Israel Putnam birthplace in Dan vers, the 

 largest in circumference which I remember, and Mr. 

 C. A. Putnam measured a tree on the road from 

 Newburyport to Amesbury, by the ship yards, which 

 was over six feet in diameter. The trunk of this 

 tree continues about the same size lor many feet, an 

 unusual thing for these willows, as they are generally 

 pollarded a few feet from the ground, producing in 

 time the grotesque old trunks, bearing fresh heads of 

 foliage, as we commonly see them. 



The brittle or crack willow (Salix fragilis), so called 

 on account of the ease with which the twigs may be 

 broken from the tree, a characteristic of many of 

 the willows, is not commonly met with in this region. 

 The willows on Park avenue, at the rear of the Derby 

 mansion, appear to belong to this species, and they 

 answer to the botanical descriptions of them in the 

 English works. This is one of the European willows 

 which have been long cultivated, especially in the 



