LONG-LEAVED WILLOW. 
59 
extensive streams, for many miles we never lost sight 
of the Long-leaved Willow, which seemed to dispute 
the domain of the sweeping flood, fringing the banks of 
the streams and concealing the marshes entirely from 
view; at every instant, when touched by the breeze, 
displaying the contrasted surface of their leaves; above 
of a deep and lucid green, beneath the bluish-white of 
silver; the whole scene, reflected by the water and 
in constant motion, presented a silent picture of exqui- 
site beauty. Immediately behind this foreground of 
spreading Willows, arose in the first rank of the legiti- 
mate forest, the lofty Poplars we have already described, 
succeeded by the majestic Oaks and Maples, while the 
distant hills to their summits were impenetrably hid by 
the vast towering Pines and Firs, which mingling as it 
were with the clouds, close in the rest of the landscape 
with funereal grandeur. 
This species is related to the Lucid and Bay Willows, 
and the buds have something of the same aromatic 
exudation, the serrulations and the base of the leaf are 
also equally glandular. The bark of the trunk is rough 
and divided, the twigs smooth and shining, of a yellow- 
ish-brown. The leaves, at first green on both surfaces, 
are, before expansion, clothed with long brown loose 
parallel hairs, which disappear with the progress of their 
growth, at length they become silvery and glaucous 
beneath; they are finely serrulated, acute at both ex- 
tremities, with the points very much attenuated. The 
stipules are semicircular and broad, serrulated on the 
margin. The flowers come out with the expanding 
leaves from lateral buds, containing, in the male, also two 
or three leaves, so that the catkin appears as a pedun- 
culated spike. The stamens are very long, from 5 to 9 
in a scale, with filaments which are hairy towards the 
