22 The East Anglian Timber Willow. 
years paid great attention to this tree, as have Mr. Rigby at Framlingham and 
Mr. Browne at Hetherset, Norfolk. . . . The foliage is distinguished by its 
great luxuriance, more azure hue, and the almost entire want of the hairs from 
the under side of the adult leaves. Mr. Crowe thought the stipules might 
afford distinctions, but we find them too variable. 1 ( Smith in Rees’s Cycl-o ., 
Yol. xxxi., No. 140). 
Mr. Linton has examined some dozen plants submitted to 
him from the East Anglian counties of Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk, 
Cambridge, and Huntingdon, all having the silky under-leaf, 
and the upper-leaf a varying grey-green ; and these he describes 
as virides, i.e., a hybrid between Salix alba, and Salix fragilis , 
but showing more of the characteristics of the former than the 
latter species. He will not allow that sex is in any way the 
cause of variation in the colour of the winter shoots, and he 
says : — 
“I think it lies deeper. Salix alba is often greenish, but some forms are 
yellow and some are red. Salix fragilis usually reddens more or less as it 
matures. Hybrids vary between the types irregularly, having the characters 
of one or the other parents mixed by no apparent rule ; so the hybrid varies 
between the greenness of one parent and the redness of the other : with two 
red-twigged parents the colour would be intensified. This is, I expect, the 
rationale of the variation in the twigs of Salix viridis C 
This view is, I think, borne out here at Ryston, since among 
some 50,000 trees, apparently all red-twigged Salix viridis , 
both the sexes are found, though the female much predominates. 
Where I have a few plants of alba from Kew growing side by 
side with those of viridis, the latter have three times the 
growth and vitality of the former. 
A few bat makers with, I fear, interested motives, have 
found fault with the East Anglian Salix viridis , but the 
great majority insist that this is their “ close-bark ” willow, 
and that it is practically unobtainable elsewhere. 
In conclusion of this part of the subject we consider that 
the East Anglian timber willow, or close bark, is the hybrid 
plant, Salix viridis , but much more approaching S. alba than 
S. fragilis. The leaves are indistinguishable from the variety 
ccerulea , and it is no doubt the same as that described by 
Loudon as the red-twigged willow of Pontey. 
Characteristics of Felled Willow Timber. 
The timber of the East Anglian willow varies very much 
with the soil in which it grows. The sap wood is of course 
white, and in the most suitable soils the heart wood turns red 
very slowly, so that the timber of a growing tree could be 
almost described as white. The same species, if in a less 
1 The reader who desires to follow further the views of numerous authorities 
on the botanical anomalies of the East Anglian willow and the alleged influence 
of sex upon the colour of the tree is referred to Loudon’s Arboretum et Frutice- 
tum Britannicum , 2nd Ed., Vol. III., chap, ciii., especially pp. 1454 and 1455. 
