sis 
NT 
way or other, useful. 
or less of an aquatic or sub-aquatic habit; but 
they comprise a wondrous diversity of size and 
form and character, and present to the botanist 
great difficulties and complexities of classifica- 
tion. About 75 species, besides a number of very 
distinct varieties, are natives of Britain; and 
about 160 have been introduced from other coun- 
tries,—a very large proportion of them from Con- 
tinental Europe, and particularly from Switzer- 
land. A few are undershrubs, varying in height 
from a span or 6 inches to 2 feet; a considerable 
number are trees, varying in height from 25 to 
70 feet; and the rest are shrubs, varying in 
height and character, at all stages, from under- 
shrubs to trees. Three are tender evergreen tall 
shrubs and small trees; one is a hardy evergreen 
undershrub; a few are small, low, hardy, decidu- 
ous trailers or procumbents; a few are hardy de- 
ciduous undershrubs; and all the rest are hardy 
deciduous shrubs and trees. Many have villous 
leaves ; many have smooth serrated leaves; and a 
few have smooth entire leaves. All may be 
propagated from cuttings; and most require a 
swampy situation; but a few thrive well on any 
common soil. 
Many or most are ornamental; several are 
eminently medicinal; a few possess considerable 
value as timber-trees; and almost all are, in some 
“The importance of the 
willow to man,” says Loudon in his Arboretum 
Britannicum, “has been recognised from the ear- 
liest ages; and ropes and baskets made from wil- 
low twigs were probably among the very first of 
human manufactures in countries where these 
trees abound. The Romans used these twigs for 
binding their vines and tying their reeds in bun- 
dles, and making all sorts of baskets with them. 
A crop of willows was considered so valuable in 
the time of Cato, that he ranks the salictum, or 
willow field, next in value to the vineyard and 
the garden. In France, the leaves, whether in a 
green or dried state, are considered the very best 
food for cows and goats; and horses, in some 
places, are fed entirely on them, from the end of 
August till November. Horses, so fed, it is stat- 
ed, will travel twenty leagues a-day without being 
fatigued. In the north of Sweden and Norway, 
and in Lapland, the inner bark is kiln-dried, and 
ground for the purpose of mixing with oatmeal 
in years of scarcity. The bark of the willow and 
also the leaves are astringent; and the bark of 
most sorts may be employed in tanning.” “There 
is not a twig of the meanest willow,” says Dr. 
Walker in his work on the Hebrides, “ but what 
is turned to some useful purpose. The native 
willows supply the Hebrideans the use of ropes. 
A traveller there has rode during the day with 
a bridle made of them, and been at anchor in a 
| vessel at night, where tackle and cable were made 
of twisted willows. In the islands of Colonsay, 
Coll, and Tiree, the people tan the hides of their 
black cattle with the bark of the grey willow. 
In Dumfries-shire, the bark of the apple-leaved 
IV. 
willow is sold to the tanners, along with the oak 
bark, though at an inferior price. The barks of 
all the willows are of a very styptic nature; they 
are all capable of dyeing black, and therefore 
capable of being a tan.” The foliage of the Bri- 
tish willows, like that of the Continental ones, is 
greedily eaten by cattle; but, in consequence of 
its very astringent quality, it may be useful 
mainly in averting febrile attacks throughout 
morassy districts, or in situations much exposed 
to marshy vapours and miasmata, and may not 
be at all suitable or healthy to flocks who gen- 
erally feed on dry pastures and breathe a pure 
dry air.. The flowers of both male and female 
willows afford early and abundant food to bees. 
Most species of willows furnish an eminently ef 
fective fence against the encroachments of 
streams; for when planted on the banks, they . 
spread their roots in all directions, and take deep 
and stubborn anchorage, and mat and consoli- 
date the soil. The principal species expressly cul- 
tivated for the use of basket-makers are noticed 
in the article Ostrr; and the most abundant in- 
digenous species of a rigid habit, forming rough 
bushes or large trees, and used in other depart- 
ments of economy than basket-making, are, in 
many districts, popularly called sallows. 
The common white willow, Salix alba, is a de- 
ciduous tree, and naturally abounds in moist 
situations, in woods and in the neighbourhood of 
towns and villages, in most parts of Britain and 
of Continental Europe. It usually attains a 
height of about 40 or 50 feet; and it grows 
quickly, and is an useful timber-tree when light- 
ness of wood and cleanness of grain are required, 
Its bark is thick, full of cracks, and suitable for 
tanning, and is called by some writers Cortex sa- 
lignum and Cortex anglicanum ,; its branches are 
numerous, and have a silky surface when young, 
and spread widely as they advance in age; its 
leaves are alternate, elliptico-lanceolate, pointed, 
silky on both surfaces, and glandular in the low- | 
est serratures; and its flowers appear in April 
and May. This tree grows best in a deep rich 
soil by the side of water, and there attains a large 
size, and, if advantageously situated, has a very 
ornamental appearance, making a fine contrast 
in its slender silvery leaves to the dark foliage 
and dense masses of oaks and beeches on slopes 
and heights in its vicinity ; but it rarely gets fair 
play or tolerable scope for developing itself as an 
ornamental plant, and is generally and most un- 
worthily degraded to the condition of a pollard. 
A pretty well known variety of it, however, 
greatly excels the normal kind in at once hand- 
someness of appearance, rapidity of growth, and 
economical value of both bark and timber; and 
two other varieties, which might almost rank as 
distinct species, are the blue, S. a. ewrulea, an in- 
digen of moist meadows in some parts of England, 
—and the curled-leaved, S. a. crispa, found only 
on cultivated grounds, principally within parks 
and gardens. The bark of the white willow 
224 
721 . 
“WILLOW. 
