PENDENT OR WEEPING TREES. 
139 
'W'AAA/VAi 
PENDENT OR WEEPING TREES. 
By Mr. P. F. KEIR. 
f N all kinds of scenery connected with the garden or field, few objects are more pleasing and striking 
than handsome weeping trees. Whether their branches are seen to kiss the lake or murmuring 
brook, or droop in mourning mien over the lonely tomb, their gracefulness and beauty are readily felt 
and acknowledged. In the extended landscape of mountain, stream, and plain, or even on the lawn 
of more circumscribed limits, the general effect of weeping trees, when tastefully distributed, is highly 
picturesque and ornamental. Much skill and taste may be expended in arranging and grouping trees 
of upright habit, but no other objects so effectually impart an air of completeness or finish, as the 
gracefully pendent boughs of the weeping varieties, such as the Willow, the Ash, and the Elm. 
But beautiful and desirable as weeping trees undoubtedly are, no experiment to increase the num¬ 
ber of varieties has as yet been successful. The vulgar notion that the grafts of upright growing kinds 
assume the pendent habit by merely being inserted in a downward position, has long been favourably 
entertained among the inexperienced in horticultural affairs. But such a notion is, of course, founded 
in extreme error, since nothing can be more at variance with all known facts bearing on vegetable 
physiology, as well as skilful practice. The fact is, in this matter, the horticulturist has no resource. 
Among the innumerable expedients incidental to his profession, no one he can employ, no scheme he 
can devise, has yet enabled him to surmount this difficulty. Amidst the profundity of learning and 
the assiduity of research, it must still be admitted that the origin or production of weeping trees is 
regulated and determined entirely by the ordinary laws of chance. To the physiologist nothing is 
more inexplicable, and perhaps nothing among the “vital phenomena” of vegetation has been less studied. 
And yet, notwithstanding the odds against which we have to contend, it is gratifying to find that 
the number of varieties of weeping trees has been considerably increased within the last few years, 
and that the character of those which have been introduced to cultivation is of no trivial description. 
Were the different varieties now known to be compared with each other, it would, perhaps, be found 
that the Ash, the Elm, and the Willow had suffered no depreciation by the introduction of others 
which have been later raised. But, indeed, a weeping tree is so graceful and beautiful, that it must, 
when well grown, command admiration whatever may be the genus to which it owes its parentage. 
It would be interesting and instructive to investigate the degrees of that perpendicular tendency 
which constitutes a perfect weeping tree. It is scarcely to be denied that there is a wide distinction 
between those whose strong shoots turn towards the ground as soon as they are a few inches in length, 
and such as assume the weeping form simply by the branches being gradually bent down by their own 
weight at the extremities. Of the former, the Oak, the Holly, the Ash, and the Elm, may be cited as 
examples, while the Willow, the Birch, and one or two others, represent the latter. Not that I 
think that the Willow is less a weeping tree than the Oak ; but in the one case the greater tenuity and 
length of the branches are more likely to be favourable to the drooping form than their robust strength 
in the other. The general effect is the same ; the cause or process by which it takes place appears to 
be different. In support of this view it may be observed that there are many trees not classed among 
those having a weeping habit, which, owing to the tenuity and length of their branches, are capable 
of being easily trained to assume as pendulous a form as the weeping varieties of the Oak, the Elm, or the 
Willow. I have seen a tree of the common Thorn {Crataegus Oxyacantha ), which, having been trained 
on a single stem seven or eight feet high, and the upper shoots kept short, finally assumed the true weeping 
form, or, at least, a very close approximation to it. Other varieties of the same beautiful genus—such as C. 
Oxyacantha laciniata, eriocarpa, melanocarpa, Azarola, and salic-ifolia, have all, more or less, a branching, 
spreading, or sub-pendent habit; and, in many cases, we find their shoots take a positively perpendicular 
direction. In the American nursery of Mr. John Waterer, Bagshot, there is a handsome tree of Pinus 
Douglasii, fully twenty feet in height, and the branches of which whether by their own weight, or by a 
natural tendency towards the ground, droop as completely as those of the Weeping Elm. It maybe further 
observed, that even shoots of the Funebral Cypress only begin to turn downwards after they have attained 
a certain length, as if requiring the force of gravitation to give the appearance so much admired. Now, 
in the case of the Weeping Holly, there is a positive downward tendency of the shoots, as soon as they 
are a few inches long; while, contrary to the tenuity we find in those of the Willow and Cypress, they 
are vigorous and thick enough to grow erect for several feet if it were conformable to their habit. 
From this view of the subject I am led to infer that some trees assume the weeping form, in a 
great measure if not entirely, by the weight of their branches, which are too soft and slender to grow 
upright, while others, from some unknown cause or action of the sap, naturally incline downwards, 
even though vigorous and strong.—K 
