89 



neighborhood of Boston. The leaves are somewhat 

 longer and broader than those of the white willow, and, 

 instead of having a slight hairiness on the under side, 

 they are smooth and bluish white. 



But the innumerable crosses among these willows and 

 even with some of our native shrubby species, make it 

 next to impossible to give satisfactory names to many of 

 the willows met with in the older settled portions of the 

 country, where these trees have been growing and re- 

 producing for two centuries or more. 



The weeping willow (Salix babylonica), although 

 not a perfectly hardy tree in this climate, is often seen 

 in a beautiful condition. There is one particularly fine 

 but not very large tree in the Broad street cemetery ; in 

 fact one learns to expect this tree in burial grounds and 

 church yards, so long has it been associated with such 

 places. There was a large weeping willow in the 

 southwestern angle of the tower of St. Peter's church, 

 said originally to have been a cutting from the tree at 

 the tomb of Napoleon at St. Helena. 



The only native tree-like willow we have in the 

 county, although some of our shrubby species become 

 trees in other portions of the United States, is the 

 black willow (Salix nigra), the scythe-leaved form of 

 which is common along streams and around ponds. 

 There is a tree on our water-works road in Beverly, in 

 the low ground at the foot of the hill, a few rods 

 south of the watering trough, and there are some fine 

 specimens, perhaps twenty -five feet in height, close to 

 the stone bridge over the Ipswich river, at Topsfield. 



The shrubby pussy willow (Salix discolor), the 

 earliest of our willows to put forth its catkins in the 

 spring, is common in low places by the roadsides. 



