Part 14

THE WHITE WILLOW

1. White Willow Tree 2. Leaf Spray 3. Pussy Buds 4. Stamen Catkin 5. Seed Catkin]

The Aspen leaves (2) are very dainty and pretty. Each leaf grows at the end of a long slender stalk which is flattened like a ribbon, and is placed edge-ways to the twig. The stalk is not strong enough to hold the leaf upright, so it droops, unless when the breeze lifts it in the air, and then you hear a constant rustle-rustle, as if the leaves were whispering to each other. These Aspen leaves are nearly round, and they have evenly-cut teeth on the edges. They are rather small and are dark in colour, and there is no white lining underneath except the soft down which you often find on very young leaves, and which soon disappears.

Through the grass beside its root the Aspen sends up a great many young shoots which are called suckers. The leaves on these young suckers are heart-shaped, and the edges are quite smooth, without any teeth.

Cattle are very fond of these young leaves, so are deer, and goats, and even the beaver. In some places people strip the Aspen leaves from the trees and give them to the cattle, which eat them greedily.

PLATE XV

THE WHITE WILLOW

To distinguish different members of the Willow family is very difficult. It contains many brothers and sisters who are so much alike that you would require to study nothing but willows for many a day if you wished to know each from the other.

In this book are described three different Willows. The first is a lofty tree with a thick trunk and spreading branches; the second is usually a bushy mass of slender twigs bending over the river bed; and the third is a small creeping shrub which twines itself among the roots of the heather, and carpets the ground with masses of silky down. And I think if you know well these three kinds of Willow, you should be able to group the other members of the family around them.

The White Willow (1) is the name given to the largest Willow tree, and very beautiful it is in early spring when the leaves unfold. It has a thick trunk covered with rough, rugged bark, and it sends out large branches, from which grow many smooth, slender twigs. The leaves (2) appear about the middle of May, long narrow leaves which taper to a point, and from a distance you would think that the edges were quite smooth. But when you pick a leaf you find that there are dainty little teeth cut all round the edge. These narrow leaves are covered on both sides with a silky grey down; this gives them a pale, silvery-grey colour, and from a distance you can easily recognise a White Willow tree by the glistening of this beautiful grey foliage, so different from the vivid young green of the Larch and the yellow-green of the Limes and Sycamores.

The White Willow produces two kinds of flowers, and these grow in catkins on different trees. The stamen catkins are the prettiest, and they appear about the same time as the young leaves. At first these stamen catkins are small egg-shaped buds, closely covered with silky grey down--pussy buds (3) the children call them; but they open very quickly, and in a few days you will see, dropping from the branches, small green catkins which curl slightly like caterpillars. Each catkin is covered with closely-shut scales, and by the time the leaves are out the scales of these stamen catkins unclose (4). Behind each scale there rises a pair of stamens on long slender stalks. These stamen stalks are hairy on the lower half, and so are the catkin scales. The heads of the stamens are sometimes tinged with red, and between each pair of stamens there lies a honey bag. Notice how constantly the bees are heard buzzing among the Willow branches. When the stamen heads are ripe they burst open, and the fine dust inside is carried by the wind to a Willow tree, on which the seed catkins grow.

These seed catkins (5) are covered with greenish scales, which are tightly pressed together at first. But in the warm spring sunshine the scales unclose, and from the foot of each scale rises a small green pear-shaped seed-vessel which has two tiny straps standing up at the top. The wind wafts the stamen dust to the tree, and some of it falls on these two small straps, which act as messengers and carry the dust down to the inside of the seed-vessel, where the plant makes ready the new seed. Unless you have a seed-bearing tree and a stamen-bearing tree growing within reach of each other, you cannot have any new seeds; but it is possible to increase the number of Willow trees by cutting off branches and planting them in a particular way in the ground, when they will send out roots and grow.

There are two other kinds of White Willow which are found nearly as frequently as the one I have just described, and neither is difficult to recognise. The Golden Willow is the name usually given to one, on account of its twigs, which are a bright shade of yellow-green, and these golden twigs are very noticeable in winter beside the dark branches of the Elms and Beeches. In this Willow the stamens and scales of the dust-producing catkins are the colour of a canary’s feathers, and in the spring sunshine they glisten like gold. This is the loveliest of all the Willow trees.

The third White Willow is known as the Crack Willow, because the branches are very easily broken; a knock will snap them from the tree trunk. If ever you try to gather a twig from other Willow trees, you will find how difficult it is to separate it from the branch. The thin green peel, with the leaves clinging to it, comes away in your hand, leaving the bare white twig still clinging to the branch, and without a knife you will scarcely force them apart. But the twigs of the Crack Willow may be snapped across easily, and the large branches are readily broken on a windy night.

THE GOAT WILLOW

1. Goat Willow or Sallow Tree 2. Leaf Spray 3. Pussy Buds 4. Stamen Catkins 5. Seed Catkins]

The wood of the White and of the Golden Willow is valuable, and is much used by builders for floors and rafters. Coopers say it makes excellent casks, and many of our best cricket bats are made from Willow wood. When straw is scarce people are said to make hats from Willow sprays. They gather the small branches and split them into long, thin strips, and these are woven into fine plaits, which are then joined together.

PLATE XVI

THE GOAT WILLOW OR SALLOW

“In Rome upon Palm Sunday They bear true palms, The cardinals bow reverently And sing old psalms.

Elsewhere these psalms are sung Beneath the olive branches, The holly-bush supplies their place Amid the avalanches.”

The second Willow or group of Willows you should learn about is the most difficult of all. In it there are many different varieties, and you would require to plant one of each kind in your garden, as a gentleman in England has done, and study them carefully for many years to discover the points wherein each Willow differs from the other.

Though the Goat Willow or Sallow (1) sometimes grows into a tall tree, it is more often seen as a bush--a bush with a short, rough stem, which does not rise far above the ground, and which sends up many tall, slender branches, covered with smooth, purplish brown peel or skin. Early in March, before the snowdrops have withered, you will find the Goat Willow in every hedge and coppice bursting into scaly brown buds. It is one of our earliest trees, and after a few days of warm sunshine the brown scales unclose and the branches are dotted with the softest and silkiest little pussy buds (3), shaped like tiny eggs and covered with grey down.

These buds grow alternately on the smooth stem with a small space between each bud. In a few days the baby buds have changed, and you may find two Willow bushes growing quite near each other on which the buds are very different. For those woolly buds are the flower catkins, and the Goat Willow bears two kinds of flowers, which do not grow on the same tree.

The bees have found out that the Willow is in flower; you can hear a swarm of them buzzing in the leafless branches, and you wonder where there is any honey to be found. On one tree the soft grey downy buds have grown larger, and they are now golden yellow catkins (4). The whole bud is covered with dainty yellow-headed stamens, nestling in pairs among oval scales edged with silky down, and it is at the base of these yellow-headed stamens that the bee finds the sweet drops of honey juice.

For many hundreds of years branches of the Goat Willow or Sallow have been carried in this country to church on Palm Sunday in remembrance of the branches of palm which the people strewed in front of Christ when He entered Jerusalem. Troops of boys and girls go into the country lanes and coppices to gather Willow-palms, which they sometimes pluck so roughly and carelessly that the tree remains broken and ruined for the rest of the year. These silky stamen catkins of the Goat Willow are one of the most welcome signs of the return of spring.

But there are other Willow flowers to be looked at: flowers which may not be so attractive, but which bear the seeds and make ready the new plants. These flowers are silky too, and underneath the soft down is an egg-shaped catkin (5), covered with small pear-shaped green seeds. Each seed has a thick yellow point at the top, and at the base there rises a scale which is pointed like a cat’s ear and is covered with long, silky hairs. When the stamen flowers are ripe their yellow heads burst, and the fine dust which fills them falls on the backs of the bees who are sipping the honey juice. Then they fly away to find another honey flower, and they often alight on a seed catkin, where the pollen dust is shaken off among the little yellow points which are waiting for it to help in the making of the new seeds. Each flower catkin sits upright on a tuft of small pale green leaves.

The leaves (2) of the Goat Willow are very different from those of the other Willows; they are broad and oval, with edges which are crinkled or waved all round and with a network of fine veins covering the leaf. These leaves, when they first come out, are covered with white down, but by the time they are full grown they are dark and shiny on the upper side, and are only downy beneath.