122 



The Scottish Naturalist. 



THE COLLECTING AND STUDY OP WILLOWS. 



By F. Buchanan White, M.D., F.L.S. 



[We reproduce this important paper, which appeared in the 

 Journal of Botany for March, 1889. 



The need of a thorough investigation of the British species 

 of Salix is only too much felt by botanists ; and few greater 

 obstacles have to be overcome than the insufficient nature of 

 the materials collected, and too frequently sent to specialists 

 for determination. Dr. White's investigation of this difficult 

 group of plants cannot fail to be of much value to all interested 

 in the British flora. It is very desirable that specimens from 

 numerous localities should be submitted to him, but still 

 more desirable that these specimens should be in satisfactory 

 condition, and a careful perusal of Dr. White's paper will give 

 the information required to ensure their being such. — Ed., 

 'Scot. Nat.]. 



A recent examination of several public and private herbariums 

 has too clearly shown that Prof. Babington's statement, — 

 quoted by Mr. Leefe in the Journal of Botany, nearly twenty years 

 ago, " that the British Willows are a disgrace to our flora," is still 

 too true. Recently many obscure points in the Botany of our 

 islands have been, or are being, cleared up, and our knowledge of 

 various difficult genera, such as Rosa, Rubus, and Hieracimn, and 

 Rotamogeton, is vastly increased, but the genus Salix has remained 

 much in the same condition for many years, and the only real 

 advance which has been made since Smith's time has been in re- 

 ducing many of the Smithian and other supposed species to the 

 rank of varieties. The chief shortcoming on the part of British 

 Botanists, with regard to the Willows, has been the ignorance, or 

 ignoring, of the work of the continental salicologists with relation 

 to the phenomenon of hybridism in the genus. Only a few of the 

 species which occur in Britain are recognised as, or supposed to 

 be, hybrids ; but many botanists seem to be unaware that, 

 theoretically, every Willow will hybridise with almost every other 

 species, and that practically the number of hybrids actually exceeds 

 the number of true species. Till this fact is recognised, and these 



