1 -1-7S ARBORETUM AND FUUTICETUM. PART III. 



that season, in order that the walks may be used without the risk of damping 

 the feet. For the same reason, also, when it can be accomplished, the salictum 

 should not be at any ureal distance from the shrubbery or the flower-garden. 

 Let us suppose a collection of a hundred sorts of willows, planted in good 

 soil, with sufficient room to assume their natural sizes and shapes ; that the 

 plants have been ten years planted ; and that they are all in flower, or coming 

 into flower ; and we shall readily imagine that a scene of so much of a parti- 

 cular kind of beauty and splendour has never yet been presented to the bota- 

 nist or the lover of gardening. For such a salictum, two or three acres would 

 be requisite; but these, we should think, might easily be spared in the parks 

 of wealthy proprietors in England, or in the grounds of gentlemen having 

 residences in the mountainous districts of Wales and Scotland. 



Accidents, Diseases, and Insects. The willow is subject to few accidents or 

 diseases ; but it is liable to be attacked by many insects. 5alix fragilis 

 Matthew states to be subject, in Scotland, to a disease similar to what the 

 canker is in the apple tree. This disease, h? says, is generally concentrated in 

 certain parts of the bark and alburnum of the trunk; a portion of the branches 

 above which withers, and the uppermost boughs, after a time, assume the 

 appearance of a stag's head and horns ; which, from the indestructibility of 

 these dead branches, the tree retains for many years ; and hence the name of 

 stag's-head osier, which is applied to this species. This disease, and other 

 causes, especially in old trees, give rise to rottenness in the trunk ; which, in 

 the willow, from its being comparatively a short-lived tree, takes place, more 

 especially in wet soils, much sooner than in most other species. Mr. Sang 

 mentions (Kal., p. 527.) that he found lime produce canker in the twigs ot 

 basket willows ; so that, when he attempted to bend them, they broke short 

 off at the cankered place. (See p. 14G9.) 



One of the earliest notices of insects injurious to willows is given by Mr. 

 William Curtis, in vol. i. of the Linncean Transactions, published in 1791. 

 This article we consider so interesting and instructive, that we shall here give 

 it almost entire. It was read before the Linnrean Society in November, 1788: 

 — " Several species of willow, particularly three of the most useful and orna- 

 mental, the S. alba, the S. fragilis, and theS. babylonica, are well known to be 

 subject to the depredations of numerous insects, and of the larva? of the Cossus 

 LignipeVda (already described as attacking the elm, see p. 1386.) in particular, 

 which feed on the, substance of the wood, and prove uncommonly destructive 

 to the latter species ; for, as the larvae in each tree are generally numerous, in 

 the course of a few years they destroy so much of the trunk, that the first 

 violent gale of wind blows down the tree. So infested are the weeping wil- 

 lows, in many nurseries, with these insects, that scarcely one in ten can be 

 selected free from them." The willows are infested, also, in the same way by 

 the larvae of the C'erambyx moschatus; and also by those of a species of the 

 C'urculionidae, which was little suspected of committing similar depredations, 

 but which, in proportion to its size, is no less destructive than those of the 

 C'erambyx and C'ossus. The larvae of a species of Nitidula [Silpha L.] are 

 also found to be injurious in a similar manner to those above named. 



In the beginning of June, 1780, Mr. Curtis observed a young tree of the 

 ,S dix viminalis, which had been planted in his garden two years, and which 

 irafl about 6 in. In diameter, throwing out from various parts of its trunk 

 a substance somewhat resembling sawdust, which fell at its base in no incon- 

 siderable quantity. This substance, on a closer examination, was found to 

 proceed from holes about the size of a goose-quill, penetrating deeply into 

 the substance of the wood, obliquely upwards and downwards. On its first 

 coming out, it appeared of the colour of the wood, and was moist; and as it 

 dry it became of a browner colour. The whole of the trunk where this 

 internal operation was going forward emitted a smell somewhat like beer in a 

 • " of fermentation j and various insects, allured thereby, settled on the tree, 

 . med eagerly to imbibe nourishment, from it: among others, the Vanessa 

 Atah'uit", Cetonia aurata, A x pw mellffica, Cantharis [Tellphorus] livida, with 



