236 
Willows and their Cultivation. 
include all variations. In another field, that of Topographical 
Botany, the late Mr. Hewett Cottrell Watson 1 remarks : 
“ Salix is another genus much like Rubus and Rosa in being 
inconveniently numerous in uncertain species and little-known 
varieties, in novelties about which most botanists must 
agree to differ. David Don enjoyed telling an anecdote of 
somebody having offended the estimable William Borrer by 
a remark that all sensible botanists eschewed Willows, while 
the crazy ones had each their own ideas about the species.” 
He proceeded to say : “ Perhaps the most sensible among us 
are those who rest content to look at Willows in the wilds and 
take least heed of their names and arrangement in books . . . 
23 salices (reckoning in the omitted aurita ) have been treated 
in the synopsis as quasi-specific groups or correct species. . . . 
I cannot make out that Hooker, Babington, Bentham, or even 
Boswell Syme, have subsequently written under the advantage 
of very complete or very clear knowledge of these difficult 
plants in their living reality and wild confusion. At any rate 
they have more usually re-said than added to their previous 
knowledge.” 
The fact of the Willow being a dioecious plant and there- 
fore at once doubling the number for the sexes, taken in 
conjunction with the further fact that salices are peculiarly 
susceptible to hybridisation, will readily suggest that the 
investigator may soon find himself involved with puzzles which 
take a great deal of thought and examination to solve. 
There have been excellent specialists who have given the 
closest attention to the genus — Professor Koch, William Borrer, 
J. E. Leefe, James Ward, N. J. Andersson, and Dr. Buchanan 
White, to confine the list to half a dozen names — but it often 
happens that we have to face paradox and perplexity in this 
field of investigation and registration thus narrowed when we 
look at the groupings as they are put before us. It seems 
pretty clear, however, that, with very few exceptions, the types 
of each species are well distributed over the divisional pro- 
vinces of Britain, into which Watson has divided the home area, 
under numbered geographical sections. 
Different methods for the better determination of species 
and their classification as applied to Willows have been sug- 
gested and worked out. Andersson seemed to have got a fairly 
clear division in the initial stages by parcelling out the genus 
into three families, which he terms Pleiandrge, Diandrse, Syn- 
andrse. Classification has been worked out by type form of 
Watson’ Cylele Britannica, 1870 Ed. 
