Getting Acquainted with the Trees

by J. Horace McFarland

The willow, with its blood relation, the poplar, is often "pollarded," or trimmed for wood, and its abundant vigor enables it to recover from this process of violent abbreviation more satisfactorily than do most trees. The result is usually a disproportionately large stem or bole, for the lopping off of great branches always tends to a thickening of the main stem. The abundant leafage of both willow and poplar soon covers the scars, and there is less cause to mourn than in the case of maples or other "hard-wooded" trees.

Clump of young white willows

If my readers will only add a willow section to their mental observation outfit, there will be much more to see and appreciate. Look for and enjoy in the winter the variation in twig color and bark hue; notice how smoothly lies the covering on one stem, all rugged and marked on another. In the earliest spring examine the swelling buds, of widely differing color and character, from which shortly will spring forth the catkins or aments of bloom, followed by the leaves of varied colors in the varied species, and with shapes as varied. Vivid green, soft gray, greenish yellow; dull surface and shining surface above, pale green to almost pure white beneath; from the long and stringy leaf of the weeping willow to the comparatively broad and thick leaf of the pussy-willow—there is variety and interest in the foliage well worth the attention of the tree-lover. When winter comes, there will be another set of contrasts to see in the way the various species lose their leaves and get ready for the rest time during which the buds mature and ripen, and the winter colors again shine forth.

These observations may be made anywhere in America, practically, for the willow is almost indifferent to locality, growing everywhere that its far-reaching roots can find the moisture which it loves, and which it rapidly transpires to the thirsty air. As Miss Keeler well remarks, "The genus Salix is admirably fitted to go forth and inhabit the earth, for it is tolerant of all soils and asks only water. It creeps nearer to the North Pole than any other woody plant except its companion the birch. It trails upon the ground or rises one hundred feet in the air. In North America it follows the water-courses to the limit of the temperate zone, enters the tropics, crosses the equator, and appears in the mountains of Peru and Chili.... The books record one hundred and sixty species in the world, and these sport and hybridize to their own content and to the despair of botanists. Then, too, it comes of an ancient line; for impressions of leaves in the cretaceous rocks show that it is one of the oldest of plants."

Common it is, and therefore overlooked; but the reader may well resolve to watch the willow in spring and summer, with its bloom and fruit; to follow its refreshing color through winter's chill; to observe its cheer and dignity; and to see the wind toss its slender wands and turn its graceful leaves.

White poplars in spring-time

The poplars and the willows are properly considered together, for together they form the botanical world family of the Salicaceæ. Many characteristics of bloom and growth, of sap and bark, unite the two, and surely both, though alike common to the world, are common and familiar trees to the dwellers in North America.

One of my earliest tree remembrances has to do with a spreading light-leaved growth passed under every day on the way to school—and, like most school-boys, I was not unwilling to stop for anything of interest that might put off arrival at the seat of learning. This great tree had large and peculiar winter buds, that always seemed to have advance information as to the coming of spring, for they would swell out and become exceedingly shiny at the first touch of warm sun. Soon the sun-caressing would be responded to by the bursting of the buds, or the falling away of their ingenious outer protecting scales, which dropped to the ground, where, sticky and shining, and extraordinarily aromatic in odor, they were just what a curious school-boy enjoyed investigating. "Balm of Gilead" was the name that inquiry brought for this tree, and the resinous and sweet-smelling buds which preceded the rather inconspicuous catkins or aments of bloom seemed to justify the Biblical designation.