1462
ARBORETUM AND FRUTICETUM.
PART III.
the plum. All the shrubby species are interesting or beautiful when plantedsingly, and allowed to take their natural shapes ; but, unless planted very thinlyand allowed to grow old and round-headed, they do not mass well together.They are therefore well adapted for the arboretum, and for indicating water,or moist situations, but not for general use in ornamental plantations. Where,ever willows are planted for the beauty of their blossoms, the male plant shouldbe chosen; because the colour and effect are produced chiefly by the anthers.Willows in general, Gilpin observes, are trees of a straggling ramification, andbut ill adapted for use in artificial landscape ; “ except as pollards to charac-terise a marshy country; or to mark, in a second distance, the winding banksof a heavy, low, sunk river; which could not otherwise be noticed.” Somespecies, he says, he has admired; and he particularises the S. alba, as havinga “ pleasant, light, sea-green tint, which mixes agreeably with foliage of adeeper hue.” By far the most beautiful willow, when in flower, is S. caprea,the catkins of which are not only larger than those of every other species,but produced in greater abundance. Hence the great beauty of this willowin early spring, and its importance as furnishing food to bees. “ It is inflower,” says Dr. Walker, speaking with reference to the climate of Edin-burgh , “ between the 15th of March and the 8th of April. During thistime, whenever the thermometer is at or about 42° in the shade, accompaniedwith sunshine, the bees come abroad. This is a temperature which oftenoccurs; and, if bees have an opportunity, during that interval, of feedingthree or four days upon this willow, the hive will be preserved, when, withoutthis, it would probably perish.”
As a curious use of the willow, it is mentioned in the Nouveau Du Hamel,that the roots are more readily changed into branches, and the branches intoroots, than in any other species of a tree. All that is necessary is, to take upa plant, and bury the whole of the branches in the soil, leaving the whole ofthe roots above ground. Poiret, the writer of the article, says he saw thisdone, in the neighbourhood of Marseilles, with a great number of plants of S.alba; that the larger twisted roots became the principal branches, and pre-served their general forms; but that the young shoots produced by these tookthe forms and appearances common to the species in its natural state.
Poetical and legendary Allusions. The willow does not appear to have beencelebrated by any of the Greek poets, nor by any of the Latins, before theAugustan age. Herodotus , however, speaks of the willow divining-rods ofthe ancient Scythians ; and the use of the willow in basketwork, &c., is men-tioned by many of the Latin prose writers. Martial alludes to the baskets(bascaudce ) made of willow twigs by the ancient Britons.
“ Barbara de pictis veni bascauda Britannis :
Sed me jam mavult dicere Roma suam.”
From Britain ’s painted sons I came,
And Basket is my barbarous name :
But now I am so modish grown,
That Rome would claim me for her own.”
The druids are said to have formed huge figures of wickerwork, which, ongreat occasions, were filled with criminals, and set fire to (see Sat. Mag-,vol. i. p. 74.) : but these baskets, according to Burnet and others, wereformed of the twigs of the oak, and not the willow. Virgil, Lucan , andmany other of the Latin poets, speak of the boats, shields, and other articlesformed, both by the Britons and Romans, from the twigs and branches of thistree. .
* “ The bending willow into barks they twine,
Then line the work with spoils of slaughter’d kine.”
Ovid gives a very good description of the situation in which willows generallygrow : —
“ A hollow vale, where watery torrents gush,
Sinks in the plain; the osier and the rush,
The marshy sedge and bending willow, nod
Their trailing foliage o’er the oozy sod.” Met., lib. vii