The hosts of Cæsar invading England in the First Century found the Britons defending themselves behind willow-woven shields, and living in huts of wattled willows, smeared with mud. From that time to the present the uses of these long shoots have multiplied.
The roots of willows are fibrous and tough as the shoots. For this reason they serve a useful purpose in binding the banks of streams, especially where these are liable to flood. Nature seems to have designed these trees for just this purpose, for a twig lying upon the ground strikes root at every joint if the soil it falls on is sufficiently moist. The wind breaks off twigs and the water carries them down stream where they lodge on banks and sand bars, and these are soon covered with billows of green.
Willows start growth early in spring, putting out their catkins, the two sexes on different trees, before the opening of the leaves. Before the foliage is full grown, the light seeds, each a minute speck, floats away in a wisp of silky down. Its vitality lasts but a day, so it must fall on wet ground at once in order to grow. But the willow family is quite independent of its seeds in the matter of propagation. Chop the roots and twigs into bits and each will grow. Chop a young willow tree into sticks and fence posts and each one, if it is stuck green into the ground, covers itself with a head of leafy twigs before the season is over.
Weeping Willow
Salix Babylonica
The weeping willow, much planted in cemeteries and parks, came originally from Asia and is remarkable for its narrow leaves that seem fairly to drip from the pendulous twigs. (See illustration, [page 55].) The foliage has a wonderful lightness and cheerfulness of expression, despite its weeping habit.
The Pussy Willow
S. discolor, Muehl.
The pussy willow is the familiar bog willow, whose gray, silky catkins appear in earliest spring. A walk in the woods in late February often brings us the charming surprise of a meeting with this little tree, just when its gray pussies are pushing out from their brown scales. We cut the twigs and bring them home and watch the wonderful color changes that mark the full development of the flowers. Turning them in the light, one sees under the sheen of silky hairs the varied and evanescent hues that glow in a Hungarian opal. In midsummer a pussy willow tree is lost among the shrubby growth in any woods. It is only because it leads the procession of the spring flowers that every one knows and loves it. (See illustrations, [pages 86-87].)
THE HORNBEAMS