Much of the Ash-wood in use for carriage-poles, oars, axe and hammer shafts, and similar purposes where only small diameters are needed, are obtained from Ash-coppice, which rapidly produces well-developed poles. So strong and elastic is the Ash timber when taken from young trees, that it is claimed it will bear a greater strain than any other European timber of equal thickness. The Ash is not one of the long-lived trees, its natural span being about two hundred years, but its wood is regarded as best between the ages of thirty and sixty years.
Cattle and horses are fond of Ash leaves, which were formerly much used for fodder, and still are in some districts; but it is said that to indulge cows in this food is fatal to the production of good butter from their milk. In some country places there is still extant a "Shrew-Ash"—a tree into which a hole has been bored sufficiently large to admit a living shrew-mouse, which has then been plugged in, to die of suffocation. A touch of a leaf from this tree was reputed to cure cramp, but especially that form of it supposed to be caused by a shrew passing over man or beast. Then there was the Ash whose bole had been cleft that it might be a "sovran" remedy for infantile hernia. It is difficult to account for the origin of these ideas, but they are deep-rooted and die hard. John Evelyn remarks of this latter superstition: "I have heard it affirmed, with great confidence and upon experience, that the rupture, to which many children are obnoxious, is healed by passing the infant through a wide cleft in the bole or stem of a growing Ash-tree; it is then carried a second time round the Ash, and caused to repass the same aperture as before. The rupture of the child being bound up, it is supposed to heal as the cleft of the tree closes and coalesces."
The origin of the name Ash is uncertain, though many fanciful suggestions have been made in explanation of its meaning. Its Anglo-Saxon form was æsc, a word used by the same people for spear, but that was because their spear-shafts were made of Ash-wood.
There are a number of Maples in cultivation, but only three of them are commonly met with in the open, and of these one alone is a native. This is the Small-leaved, Common, or Field Maple (Acer campestre), a small tree that attains a height of twenty or thirty feet in the tall hedgerow or in the wood, but is most familiar as a mere bush or as a constituent of the low field-hedge. It does not grow to any considerable thickness of bole, so has no importance as timber, but the turner, the cabinet-maker, and the artist in fancy pipes and snuff-boxes, are glad to make use of its fine-grained, pale-brown wood. This is often beautifully veined, especially the wood from the roots, and as it will take a high polish, which brings out these markings plainly, it is a very desirable wood for such purposes. The brown bark gives little clue to the character of the wood it covers, for in young trees it is rough and deeply fissured, though with age it becomes smooth.
The leaves vary greatly in size, those growing on a tree being much larger than those produced by a bush. They range from two to four inches in diameter, and are always in pairs—springing from the sides of the branch exactly opposite to each other. The general form of the leaf is kidney-shaped, but it is cut up into five lobes, which are more or less toothed. They are downy when young, of a deep green colour, but too frequently this is disguised by a thick layer of road-dust. In October they turn to a rich yellow, and the Maple is then prominent even in a distant view, for the bright colour of the foliage makes the tree stand out prominently, in strong contrast with the still deep green of the Oaks or Firs beyond.
The Maples are among the trees that have complete flowers, although in this case they happen to be greenish yellow. They are about a quarter of an inch across, have narrow sepals and narrower petals, eight stamens, and a two-lobed flattened ovary, that develops into the pair of broad-winged "keys," or samaras. These are individually much like those of the Ash, but unsymmetrical and curved, half an inch long, with their bases joined together. Sometimes in late summer these "keys" take on a colouring of deep crimson, previous to turning brown as they ripen. As a rule the contained seeds take eighteen months to germinate, though a few may start growth the first spring.
The Common Maple is thought to be indigenous only from the county of Durham to the southern coast, and in Ireland. In Scotland it is only an introduced plant that has become naturalized.
The Great Maple, Sycamore, or False Plane (Acer pseudo-platanus) is not a native tree, but it appears to have been introduced from the Continent as far back as the fifteenth century, so that it has had time during the intervening centuries to get well established among us, and by means of its winged seeds to distribute itself to remote corners of our islands. It appears to be fond of exposed situations, growing to a large size even near the sea, where the salt-laden gales destroy all other deciduous trees. Recently in Ireland we ascended a hill where the planting of pines and other trees had resulted in comparative failure, and found that the wind-borne seeds of the Sycamore had produced a large number of young trees, which will probably serve later as nurses for more desirable timber-producers. The close-grained, firm wood, which can be worked with ease, is not highly esteemed.
Its name of False Plane is due to the Scots calling it the Plane, misled of old by the similarity of the leaves, and the fact that patches of the fine ash-grey bark flake off, as in the true Plane, showing other tints. It grows to a height of sixty or even eighty feet so quickly that it is full-grown when only fifty or sixty years old, though it is supposed to live from a hundred and fifty to two hundred and fifty years. Like that of the Common Maple, the wood of the Sycamore is firm and fine-grained, which does credit to the efforts of the French-polisher. The leaves are more heart-shaped, but cut into five lobes, whose edges are unequally toothed; they are six or eight inches across. The flowers are similar to those of the Common Maple, but larger, and in a long hanging raceme, which has a rather fine appearance. The samaras are scimitar-shaped and red-brown, about an inch and a half long. These are produced freely after the tree is about twenty years old. Like many other Maples, the Sycamore has sap which contains much sugar. Some of this appears also to exude through the leaves, for they are often found to be quite sticky to the touch. The black patches so frequent on Sycamore leaves are the work of a small fungus—Rhytisma acerinum.
The Norway Maple (Acer platanoides) is a tree of much more recent (1683) introduction from the Continent. Its height is from thirty to sixty feet, and its early growth is very rapid. The leaves are even larger than those of Sycamore, of similar shape, but the lobes are only slightly toothed. The clusters of bright yellow flowers are almost erect; the tree does not produce seed until it is between forty and fifty years old.
The Maple was the Mapel-treow or Mapulder of the Anglo-Saxons; it was originally the Celtic mapwl, and the name indicated those knotty excrescences on the trunk from which the cabinet-maker got the mottled wood that was so highly prized in early times for the making of bowls and table-tops, for which fabulous prices have been paid.
Almost everybody who has an elementary acquaintance with trees knows a Poplar at sight, the foliage being so very distinct from that of other trees. But the distinctions between the several species are not so immediately obvious. Five kinds of Poplar are commonly grown in this country, of which only two are regarded as distinct indigenous species. These are the White Poplar (Populus alba), and the Aspen (P. tremula). A third indigenous form, the Grey Poplar (P. canescens), is thought to be either a sub-species of P. alba, or a hybrid between that species and P. tremula. Then of common introduced species we have the Black Poplar (Populus nigra), and the Lombardy Poplar (P. fastigiata).
The Poplars (Populus) and the Willows (Salix) together constitute the Natural Order Salicineæ. The two genera agree broadly in the construction and arrangement of their flowers in catkins, but whereas the Poplars have broad leaves and drooping catkins, the Willows, with few exceptions, have long slender leaves and erect catkins. The sexes are not only in distinct flowers, but on separate trees—what botanists describe by the term diœcious. The males appear to be far more numerous than the females. In the popular sense there are no flowers, for there are neither sepals nor petals, each set of sexual organs being protected merely by a scale. The catkins containing these flowers usually appear before the leaves. As there is nothing to attract insects to the work, the trees have to rely upon the wind for conveying the pollen to the female trees. The first three species described below have from four to twelve stamens; P. nigra and P. fastigiata have from twelve to twenty stamens. The Poplars share the love of the Willows for moist places. They are found more frequently in gardens and hedgerows than in woods. Their growth is rapid, and their timber, consequently, is of little value, though its softness and lightness render it suitable for making boxes, and its whiteness and non-liability to splinter fit it for use as flooring. An additional point in favour of White Poplar for the latter purpose is its unreadiness to burn.
The White Poplar, or Abele (Populus alba), grows into a large tree, something between sixty and a hundred feet high, covered with smooth grey bark. Its branches spread horizontally, and its broad heart-shaped leaves, which vary from an inch to three inches long, are hung on long slender foot-stalks. In most trees the leaf-stalks are flattened from above, but in the case of the Poplars they are flattened from the sides, so that when moved by the wind they flutter laterally. These leaves have a waved margin, a smooth upper surface, and are snowy white and cottony beneath. The leaf-buds are also invested by cottony filaments. The roots produce numerous suckers, even at a distance from the trunk, and the leaves on these sucker-shoots are very large—two to four inches broad—of a more triangular shape, the outline lobed and toothed. The catkins, which appear in March and April, are cylindrical; those of the male trees may be as much as four inches long, each flower containing from six to ten stamens with purple anthers. The female catkins are not nearly so long, the two yellow stigmas are slender with slit tips, and the ovaries develop into slender egg-shaped capsules, each with its fringed scale. This species is said not to produce flowers in Scotland. In July, when the seed capsules open, the surrounding vegetation and ground are thickly strewn with the long white cotton filaments attached to the seeds. The wood of this tree is softer and more spongy than that of other Poplars.
The Grey Poplar (Populus canescens), which is thought to be indigenous only in the south-eastern parts of England, is not so tall a tree as P. alba, though it sometimes attains to eighty or ninety feet, with a circumference between ten and twenty-four feet. Its life extends to about a century, but its wood—which does not split when nails are driven through thin boards of it—is considered best between fifty and sixty years of age. The leaves on the branches are shaped like those of P. alba, but their under sides are either coated with grey down or are quite smooth; those of the suckers have their margins cut into angles and teeth. The female flowers mostly have four wedge-shaped purple stigmas (sometimes two), which are cleft into four at their extremities.
The Aspen or Asp (Populus tremula) does not attain either to so large a size or so moderate an age as the Abele. Its height, when full grown, is from forty to eighty feet, and after fifty or sixty years its heart-wood begins to decay, and its destruction is then hastened by the attacks of such internal-feeding insects as the caterpillars of the Goat-moth and the Wood Leopard-moth. The leaves on the branches are broadly egg-shaped, approaching to round, the waved margin cut into teeth with turned-in points. In one form (var. villosa) the leaves are covered beneath with silky or cottony hairs; in the other form (var. glabra) they are almost smooth. The leaves on the suckers are heart-shaped, without teeth. The leaf-stalks of the Aspen are longer than those of its congeners, so that they are constantly on the flutter—a circumstance that has led to an explanatory legend, to the effect that the cross of Calvary was made of Aspen-wood, and that the tree shivers perpetually in remembrance. Possibly the present inferiority of Aspen timber is to be explained in a similar manner. The catkins, which are two or three inches long, are similar to those of the foregoing species, but the scales have jagged edges. It is indigenous in all the British Islands as far north as Orkney, but, though commonly found in copses on a moist light soil, is more frequent as a planted tree in gardens and pleasure grounds. It is a characteristic tree of the plains throughout the Continent, but ascends to 1600 feet in Yorkshire, and in the Bavarian Alps is found as high as 4400 feet. It is not a deep-rooting tree, the root-branches running almost horizontally. Where accessible to cattle or deer, the foliage of the suckers is eagerly browsed by them.
The Black Poplar (Populus nigra) appears to be so called not by reason of any blackness of leaf or bark, but because of the absence of any white or grey down on the underside of its leaves. Its bark is grey, like that of the species already mentioned, but readily distinguished from them by the great swellings and nodosities that mar the symmetry of its trunk. It is a tree of erect growth, fifty to sixty feet in height, with horizontal branches, and leaves that vary in shape from triangular and rhombic to almost circular, and in width from an inch to four inches. They have rounded teeth on the margins, which are at first also fringed, and in their young state the underside is silky. The flowers in the catkins of this and the next species are not so densely packed. Those of the male are two or three inches in length, and dark red in colour; their abundance before the tree has put out its leaves makes the male tree a conspicuous object. The female catkins are shorter and do not droop. When the roundish capsules burst in May or June to distribute their seeds, the white cotton with which the latter are invested gives prominence to the female tree. The wood is chiefly used by the turner; in Holland, where it is extensively cultivated, it provides the material for sabots. The Black Poplar is not a native of this country, but it is generally distributed throughout Europe and Northern Asia. The date of its introduction is not known, but it has been here for many centuries, and is quite naturalized, springing up on river banks and in other moist situations. Some botanists regard it as only a variety of the Lombardy Poplar, but apart from the very different habit of the tree—not by itself sufficient grounds for separation—there is the more important fact that the Black Poplar rarely produces suckers from its roots, whilst the Lombardy Poplar does so constantly. However, this is a point we can leave for the botanists to discuss; for the purposes of this book the two trees are sufficiently distinct to be treated separately.
The Lombardy Poplar (Populus fastigiata) is no more a native of Italy than of England. Its home is in the Taurus and the Himalayas, whence it has spread into Persia. Introduced into Southern Europe, it has become specially abundant along the rivers of Lombardy, and so in France and England it bears the name of that country. Lord Rochford introduced it to England from Turin in 1758. Its leaves are like those of the Black Poplar, but its branches, instead of spreading, all grow straight upwards, so that the fastigiate or spire shape of the tree is produced—a shape only found otherwise among coniferous trees, particularly in the Cypress, the Juniper and the Irish Yew. It is its form, great height (100 to 150 feet), and rapidity of growth that have led to its wide use here as an ornamental tree—in many cases as a mere vegetable hoarding to shut out some offensive view. Its growth is extremely rapid, especially during its first score of years, when it will attain a height of sixty feet or more, provided it be grown in good, moist (but not marshy) soil. Its wood is, of course, of little value, and is chiefly used for making boxes and packing-cases, where its lightness, combined with toughness and cheapness, is an advantage. The bark is rough and deeply furrowed, unlike the other species, and the trunk is twisted. Like the Black Poplar, it has smooth shoots, and the unopened buds are sticky. It is propagated in this country by suckers and cuttings. It is said that the first trees introduced were so obtained, and that they were all from male trees; consequently, that we have no female trees here, and seed production is impossible. If the female grows here, it is certainly very scarce. The bark has been used for tanning.
The Black Italian Poplar (Populus monilifera) is another misnamed tree, for it is a native of North America, though introduced to England from the Continent in 1772 by Dr. John Hope. It has the distinction of being considered the most rapid-growing even of the Poplars. Loudon gives its rate of growth in the neighbourhood of London as between thirty and forty feet in seven years! Even in Scotland (where it has been largely planted as a substitute for Larch, since the partial failure of that tree) it attains a height of 120 feet in sixty years, when planted along the river banks. It is probably only a variety of P. nigra, which it resembles in most points, but is larger, and of very erect growth.
The Tacamahac or Balsam Poplar (Populus balsamifera) is another importation from North America, introduced in 1692. In its native country it grows to a height of eighty feet, but here forty or fifty feet is more usual. Its leaves are of more slender form than those of the other Poplars, egg-shaped, with a near approach to being lance-shaped. Their edges are toothed, their upper surface dark green and smooth, the underside whitish with cotton. The distinctive character of the tree is the fragrance of its foliage, which scents the air on moist evenings, and makes the Tacamahac a desirable tree to plant near the water, where alone it attains any moderate size.
There is not in the whole of the British flora another genus of plants that presents such difficulties of identification as the genus Salix. Even so hardened a botanist as Sir J. D. Hooker, in reviewing the tangle of species, varieties (natural and cultivated), and hybrids, is so far stirred from his ordinary composure that he stigmatizes it as a "troublesome genus." When Sir Joseph chose that mild adjective he was at Kew surrounded by the national herbaria and with nicely labelled living plants at hand for comparison. What, then, can the rambling nature-lover hope to do with the Willows he comes across one at a time, without much chance of comparing? He must be content to follow the "lumpers," who group a number of these uncertain forms under the name of a species to which they have evident relationship. When he has mastered the distinctions between these aggregate species, it will be early enough to attempt the segregation of the forms and varieties under each.
In their natural condition Willows are graceful and picturesque, but a large number of the examples met with in our rambles have been so altered for commercial reasons as to be more grotesque than beautiful. It is not the timber-man who is responsible this time, for a pollard Willow, though it produces a shock-head of long slender shoots, suitable for basket-rods, lets in moisture at the top of the bole, and the wood is more or less decayed and worthless. Only four of our native Willows can be regarded as timber trees. These are the White Willow, the Crack Willow, the Bedford Willow, and the Sallow. Like the Poplars, their growth is very rapid, and their wood is consequently light, but it has the advantage of Poplar-wood in being tougher, and therefore serving for purposes where Poplar is of no value. In the present day the growers of straight-boled Willows find their best market among the makers of cricket-bats. A good deal of it is also cut into thin strips for plaiting into chip-hats and hand-baskets. The Osier is grown in extensive riverside beds for the production of long pliant shoots for the basket-weavers; though many of the so-called Osier-rods are really stool-shoots from Willows that have been pollarded, or whose leading shoot has never been allowed to grow. On those parts of our coast where the crab and lobster fishery is pursued, a regular supply of such shoots for weaving into "pots" and "hullies" is a necessity, and a "withy bed" will usually be found on some valley stream near, or on a damp terrace halfway up the cliffs.
The bark of the tree Willows has long been known to be rich in an alkaloid called salicine, which has tonic and astringent properties, and has often been used instead of quinine, though it is not nearly so powerful as the Peruvian drug. The bark is also used for tanning.
The association of the Willow with sadness is very old, but there does not appear to be any satisfactory reason for it—certainly to contemplate a naturally-grown Willow that grows on the edge of a limpid stream, in which its graceful shoots and slender leaves are reflected, does not suggest sad thoughts to the average healthy mind. The association is chiefly with maidens forsaken by their false lovers, as indicated by Shakespeare when he makes Desdemona say—
The Crack Willow or Withy (Salix fragilis) is one of the two most considerable of our tree Willows. In good soil it will in twenty years attain nearly its full height, which is eighty or ninety feet. Its bole sometimes has a girth of twenty feet. Its smooth, polished shoots afford the best ready means of distinguishing it, for instead of their base pointing to the centre of the trunk as in other trees, they grow obliquely, so that the shoots frequently cross each other. They are both tough and pliant, but if struck at the base they readily break off. This character explains the names Crack Willow and fragilis. The leaves are lance-shaped, three to six inches long, smooth, with glandular teeth, pale or glaucous on the underside, and with half-heart-shaped stipules, which, however, are soon cast off. As we have already indicated under the head of Poplars, the male and female catkins of the Willows are borne by different trees. In the case of the Crack Willow, the male catkins are an inch or two long, proportionately stout, each flower bearing two stamens (occasionally three, four, or five). The female catkin is more slender, the flowers each containing a smooth ovary, ending in a short style that divides into two curved stigmas. The catkins appear in April or May. Although, like most of the Willows, this species is fond of cold, wet soil in low situations, it is not restricted to the plains. In Northumberland it is found at 1300 feet above the sea. Its northward range extends as far as Ross-shire, but it is a doubtful native in both Scotland and Ireland.
The Bedford Willow (S. russelliana) is believed to be a hybrid between S. fragilis and S. alba. It grows to a height of fifty feet, with a girth of twelve feet. The leaves are more slender than those of S. fragilis, taper to a point at each end, and are very smooth on both sides. It occurs in swampy woods.
The White Willow (Salix alba) is so called from the appearance of the leaves as the light is reflected from their silky surfaces, which are alike above and below. It is a tree from sixty to eighty feet high, with a girth of twenty feet, covered with thick and deeply fissured bark. The leaves are from two to four inches long, of a narrow elliptical shape. In the typical form the twigs are olive-coloured, but in the variety vitellina (known as the Golden Willow) these are yellow or reddish. In the variety cærulea the old leaves become quite smooth above, but retain the glaucous appearance of the underside. The White Willow is found as far north as Sutherlandshire, but although it is believed to be an indigenous species, most of the modern specimens appear to have been planted. It affords good timber, and the bark is almost equal to that of Oak for tanning. A great number of the old Willows met with in our rambles are partially decayed, a condition frequently the result of lopping large branches, for the wound never heals, and decay setting in at that point, extends down the bole. Upon such decaying specimens one may often find one of the most handsome of our native beetles—the Musk-beetle, with long, slender body and long antennæ, all coloured in dark golden green, and diffusing the aroma of a rose.
The Almond-leaved or French Willow (Salix triandra) is a small tree about twenty feet high, distinguished by its bark being thrown off in flakes. Its slender lance-shaped leaves are smooth green above and glaucous beneath, two to four inches long, and with half-heart-shaped stipules. The male flowers offer another distinguishing mark in their stamens being three in number. Its habitats are the banks of rivers and streams, and in Osier-beds. It is extensively grown on account of the long, straight shoots produced from the stump when the tree is cut down, which are of great use in wicker-work.
The Bay-leaved Willow (Salix pentandra) is met with either as a small upright tree about twenty feet high, or as a shrub eight feet high. Its oval or elliptical leaves are rich green, smooth and sticky on the upper surface, and give out a pleasant fragrance like those of the Bay-tree; they vary from an inch to four inches long, and they may or may not bear stipules, but if these are present they will be egg-shaped or oblong. The stamens are normally five in each flower, but they vary up to twelve. This is reputed to be of all our Willows the latest to flower. A line drawn through York, Worcester, and North Wales will give roughly its southward range as a native species. South of that line it has been planted; north of it to the Scottish border it is a native. It has been found growing at a height of 1300 feet in Northumberland.
The Sallow (Salix caprea) is the only other species that can properly be considered as a tree, as it attains to a height of thirty feet, though fifteen to twenty feet is a more common measurement. Its usually egg-shaped leaves vary from almost round to elliptical or lance-shaped, and from two to four inches in length. In the typical form, which occurs chiefly in woods, dry pastures, and hedgerows, they are broad, smooth, and dull-green above, covered with soft white down beneath; the stipules half-kidney-shaped. This is the earliest of all our Willows to flower, and the gold (male) and silver (female) catkins are put out before the leaves. In the country, within a few miles of the larger cities, this can hardly be a desirable species to plant, for on the Sunday before Easter thousands who at no other period exhibit any strong religious tendency journey out to pick some "Palm," as they designate the Sallow bloom, and the rough pruning the Sallows then get must in many cases be disastrous. He who imagines that insect life is suspended until spring is on the verge of summer should visit the woods when the Sallow is in bloom; he will be astonished at the swarms of bees and moths that are collecting the abundant pollen or sipping the nectar provided for them. Before the bright catkins can be seen the locality of the tree may be known by the loud hum produced by hundreds of pairs of wings. The all but invariable rule among the Willows—as among Oaks, Beech, Birch, Hazel, and Pines—is to depend upon the wind for the transfer of pollen from one tree to the stigmas of another of the same species, but in the Sallow we find a breaking away from what was doubtless the primitive arrangement in all flowering plants, by the bribing with honey of more reliable and less wasteful winged carriers.
The Gray Sallow (Salix cinerea) is really a sub-species of S. caprea. It has a liking for moister places than the type, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that its growth in moister situations has brought about the differences by which it is separated from the parent form. These points are, briefly—the buds and twigs are downy, the leaves smaller and proportionately narrower, the upper surface downy, grey-green beneath; the anthers of the male pale yellow, the capsule of the female smaller.
The Eared Sallow (S. aurita) is probably also only another form of S. caprea, distinguished by its small, bushlike proportions (two to four feet high), long branches and red twigs; its small wrinkled leaves, which are usually less than two inches long, are of an almost oblong shape, downy beneath, and with large ear-shaped stipules. Its likeness is much closer to S. cinerea than to the type; it is fond of damp copses and moist places on heaths, where it may be found at considerable elevations. In the Highlands it ascends to 2000 feet.
There are Willows of dwarf habit, some with long straggling branches and more or less prostrate stems, that grow upon heaths. Each has a name under which it has at some time or other been ranked as a distinct species, just as the forms of Bramble and Rose have been. The differences between them are minute, and of little interest save to the advanced scientific botanist, who with his dried specimens spread before him often detects subtle distinctions not apparent to the outdoor student of the living plant. For the purposes of those for whom this volume is intended they may be regarded as one.
Dwarf Silky Willow (Salix repens). It is a low bush from six to twelve inches high, the stem lying along the ground. Some of the branches straggle in the same fashion, but those which bear the flowers are more or less erect. The leaf-buds and the young leaves are silky, a condition that usually endures on the lower surface, and in some forms on the upper also. They are broadly or narrowly lance-shaped, varying in the different forms alluded to above; in size they range from a half to one and a half inches in length, and may have lance-shaped stipules, or none at all. The scales of the catkins are yellowish-green or purple, with dark tips. After they have shed their pollen the anthers turn black. One form or other of this species will be found in all parts of the British Islands where there are heaths or commons; in the Highlands it occurs as high as 2500 feet.
Another group of small Willows that form bushes (rarely a small tree) have been united under two species—the Dark-leaved Willow (Salix nigricans), and the Tea-leaved Willow (Salix phylicifolia). None of them occur south of Yorkshire, and the chief distinction between the two species (?) consists in the leaves of S. nigricans turning black when being dried for the herbarium, whilst those of S. phylicifolia do not.
The Osier (Salix viminalis). Many of the foregoing Willows, when cut down low and induced to send out long, slender shoots, are known as Osiers, but only two species are botanically regarded as Osiers—this and the Purple Osier (S. purpurea). The present species may remain as a shrub or grow into a small tree, thirty feet high, with long, straight branches, which are silky when young, but afterwards become polished. The leaves vary in length from four to ten inches, and are slenderly lance-shaped, tapering to a point in front, and narrowing into the foot-stalk behind. They have waved margins without teeth, and the upper surface netted with veins, the under surface silvery and silky; stipules narrow lance-shaped. The Osier may be seen in Osier-beds and wet places generally throughout the country as far north as Elgin and Argyll. There are several varieties and hybrids.
The Purple Osier (Salix purpurea). In all the other Willows mentioned the stamens, whatever their number, all have the filaments distinct from each other. In this species alone the filaments of the two stamens are more or less united. The Purple Osier gets its name from the red or purple bark which clothes the thin but tough twigs. It is a shrub, and grows from five to ten feet high. The leaves, which are rather thin in texture, are from three to six inches long, of slender-lance-shape, with toothed edges, smooth and glaucous on both sides, but especially beneath, somewhat hairy when young. They are almost opposite on the twigs, and when dried for the herbarium turn black. There are several varieties of this shrub, which were formerly honoured with specific rank.
There remains a group of several small species of very local occurrence, with which we can do little more here beyond naming them.
The Woolly Willow (Salix lanata) is a small shrub, two or three feet high, with twisted branches, woolly twigs, and hairy black buds. The broad egg-shaped or oblong leathery leaves are also woolly, and two or three inches long. There are half-heart-shaped stipules at the base of the very short leaf-stalk. It is an Alpine plant, and is found about the mountain rills of Perth, Forfar, Inverness, and Sutherland at elevations between 2000 and 2500 feet. Conspicuous in spring for its rich golden catkins. Sadler's Willow (S. sadleri), of which only two or three specimens have been found (in Glen Callater, 2500 feet), is probably a form of this species.
The Lapland Willow (Salix lapponum) is of a similar proportion to the last-named, sometimes erect, sometimes trailing. Its leaves are more elliptic in shape, covered above with silky hairs and below with cottony filaments. In lanata the raised veins form a network pattern; in lapponum they are straight. The stipules at the base of the long foot-stalk are small or altogether wanting. Like the preceding species, it is restricted to Scotch Alpine rocks, at elevations between 2000 and 2700 feet.
The Whortle-leaved Willow (Salix myrsinites) is a small, wiry, creeping, or half-erect shrub, six inches to a foot high, with toothed, dark glossy leaves, an inch or less in length, whose net-veining shows on both sides. It is restricted to the Alpine parts of mid-Scotland, from 1000 to 2700 feet.
The Small Tree-Willow (Salix arbuscula) is a small shrub, whose stem creeps along the ground and roots as it goes, sending up more or less erect branches a foot or two high. The downy twigs are first yellow, then reddish-brown. The small leaves vary from egg-shaped to lance-shaped, and are shining above and glaucous beneath; toothed. In the Highlands of Aberdeen, Argyll, Dumfries, Forfar, and Perth, between 1000 and 2400 feet.
The Least Willow (Salix herbacea) is not so restricted in its range, for it is found in all parts of the United Kingdom where there are heights sufficiently Alpine (2000 to 4300 feet) for its tastes. It is only an inch or two high, and has consequently the distinction of being the smallest British shrub. It is not so herbaceous as it seems, or as its name implies, for its shrubby stem and branches creep along underground, sending up only short, scantly leaved twigs. The curled, roundish leaves do not exceed half an inch in length; they are net-veined, toothed, and shining. The catkins appear after the leaves.
The Net-leaved Willow (Salix reticulata) is another of the Scotch Alpines. It is similar in habit to the last-named, but larger, its buried branches sending up twigs a foot long. The roundish-oblong, leathery leaves are not toothed; they are smooth above and glaucous beneath, strongly net-veined on either side. The purplish or yellow catkins do not develop till after the leaves. It is restricted to the mountains of Aberdeen, Forfar, Inverness, Perth, and Sutherland.
The Weeping Willow (Salix babylonica), so conspicuous an ornament of riverside lawns, is an introduced species, whose slender branches hang downwards. It has large, lance-shaped, finely toothed leaves, smooth above and glaucous beneath. Further description of so well-known a tree is unnecessary. It attains a height of forty to fifty feet. The name babylonica was bestowed in the belief that its headquarters were on the banks of the Euphrates. It is now known to be a native of Japan, and other parts of Asia.
The name Willow is the Anglo-Saxon welig, indicating pliancy, willingness.
The British flora is singularly poor in coniferous plants, the Scots Pine, the Yew, and the Juniper being our only native species, and even of these some authorities will have it that the Yew is not truly a Conifer at all; they place it in a separate order—Taxaceæ. For our present purpose, however, although the Yew does not produce cones, it will be convenient to keep it in its old position. The principal feature distinguishing all Conifers and their allies (Gymnosperms) from other flowering plants (Angiosperms) is briefly this: Angiosperms have their incipient seeds (ovules) enclosed in a carpel, through which a shoot from the pollen grain has to penetrate in order to reach and fertilize the ovule. In Gymnosperms the carpel takes the form of a leaf or bract, upon which the naked ovule lies open to actual contact with the pollen grain. After fertilization the carpel enlarges to protect the seed, and becomes fleshy or woody, in the latter case a group of carpels forming the well-known cones of Pine or Fir.