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basket willow." Mr. Forbes received it from Messrs. Loddiges, under the name of S. Meyeriana; which species, he says, is readily distinguished from S. lùcida by its much larger leaves, and shorter obtuse catkins. There are plants in the Goldworth Arboretum, and in the salictum at Woburn.

Group v. Frágiles Borrer.

Trees, with their Twigs mostly brittle at the Joints.

Stamens 2 to a flower. Ovary glabrous, elongated, seated upon a more or less obvious stalk. Flowers very loosely disposed in the catkin. Leaves lanceolate, serrated, glabrous, stipuled. The plants, trees of considerable size. (Hook, Br. Fl., ed. 2., adapted.)

19. S. BABYLONICA. The Babylonian, or weeping, Willow. Identification. Lin. Sp. Pl., 1443.; Willd. Sp. Pl., 4. p. 671.; Smith in Rees's Cyclo., No. 42.; Forbes in Sal Wob., No. 22.; Koch Comm., p. 17., note; Pursh Fl. Amer. Sept., 2. p. 614. Synonymes. S. propendens Sering. Sal. Hel., p. 73. (Koch); S. orientalis, &c., Tourn.; S. arábica, &c., C. Bauh. ; Saule pleureur, Parasol du grand Seigneur, Fr.; Trauer Weide, Thränen Weide, Ger.

The Seres. The female is figured in Sal. Wob.; the male is not known, in a living state, in Britain; unless it be S. b. Napoleòna, as suggested in p. 1513.

Engravings. Rauw. It., 25. 183.; Sal. Wob., No. 22.; our fig. 22. in p. 1607.; and the plates of this tree in our last Volume.

Spec. Char., &c. Leaves lanceolate, acuminate, finely serrated, glabrous; glaucous beneath. Catkins protruded at the same time as the leaves. Ovary ovate, sessile, glabrous. (Willd. Sp. Pl., 4 p. 671.) A native of Asia, on the banks of the Euphrates, near Babylon, whence its name; and also of China, and other parts of Asia; and of Egypt, and other parts of the north of Africa. It is said to have been first brought into England by Mr. Vernon, a merchant at Aleppo, who sent it to his seat at Twickenham Park, at about 1730, where it was seen growing by the celebrated Peter Collinson, in 1748. In the Hortus Kewensis, the date of its introduction is given as 1692; but no particulars are stated respecting it. Delille, in a note to his L'Homme des Champs, says that Tournefort first introduced it into Europe; and some authors, on the authority of the St. James's Chronicle for August, 1801, assert that Pope introduced it into England, and that his favourite tree at Twickenham was the first planted in this country. The story is, that Pope, happening to be with Lady Suffolk, when that lady received a present from Spain, or, according to some, from Turkey, observed that some of the pieces of withy bound round it appeared as though they would vegetate; and, taking them up said, " Perhaps these may produce something that we have not in England." Whereupon, the story adds, he planted one of them in his garden at Twickenham; which became the weeping willow, afterwards so celebrated. This paper was published about the time that Pope's willow was cut down, because the possessor of his villa was annoyed by persons asking to see it. The most probable of these stories appears to be, that the tree was brought to Europe by Tournefort. It is now universally cultivated wherever it will stand the open air, not only in Europe, but in Asia, and in the civilised parts of Africa: it is also a great favourite in North America. That this tree is a favourite one in China, and also very common in that country, appears from the frequent representations of it that are found on porcelain, tea-chests, &c. It is also pictured in a view of the village of Tonnan, drawn by John Nicohoff, July 3, 1655, on his way to Pekin, with the embassy which the Dutch sent to the Emperor of China in that year. (Syl. Flor., 2. p. 265.) That the Chinese use it in their planted garden scenery, along with other ornamental trees, is evident, from the published views of the

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gardens and villas of Canton, and other places in China. Fig. 1302., which is reduced from a drawing kindly lent us by Sir G. T. Staunton, shows part of the villa of Consequa, who had one of the finest gardens in Canton about the year 1812, when the drawing was taken. A large weeping willow is shown in the left of the picture, two or more in the middle, and one on the right, as if placed on a balcony; or perhaps growing through it from the conservatory below. The Chinese employ the weeping willow also in their cemeteries, as appears from fig. 1304., reduced from a plate in Dobell's Travels, which represents the cemetery of the Vale of Tombs, near the lake See Hoo. All the prints of Chinese objects, indeed, concur in showing that the weeping willow is one of the most generally admired trees in China. It is common in gardens in the neighbourhood of Algiers, and in burial-grounds throughout Turkey, and great part of the west of Asia. In many countries, particularly in France and Germany, it appears to have taken the place of the cypress, as a tree for planting in cemeteries; and the reasons why it is preferred for this purpose are thus given by Poiret in the Nouveau Du Hamel: "The cypress was long considered as the appropriate ornament of the cemetery; but its gloomy shade among the tombs, and its thick heavy foliage of the darkest green, inspire only depressing thoughts, and present death under its most appalling image. The weeping willow, on the contrary, rather conveys a picture of the grief felt for the loss of the departed, than of the darkness of the grave. Its light and elegant foliage flows like the dishevelled hair and graceful drapery of a sculptured mourner over a sepulchral urn; and conveys those soothing, though softly melancholy, reflections, which have made one of our poets exclaim, 'There is a pleasure even in grief." Notwithstanding the preference thus given to the willow, the shape of the cypress, conveying, to a fanciful mind, the idea of a flame pointing upwards, has been supposed to afford an emblem of the hope of immortality, and is still planted in many churchyards on the Continent, and alluded to in epitaphs under this light. In many of the churchyards of Germany, both emblems are combined; the Lombardy poplar being substituted for the cypress; as, indeed, we are informed it is in many of the cemeteries in Turkey and Persia. Fig. 1303. represents a churchyard in Baden, called the

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ing to some, this is a distinct species, indigenous to the island; and others even assert that it is not a willow at all. Being anxious to procure correct information as to the tree at St. Helena, we sent a letter to the Morning Chronicle, which appeared in that journal on Sept. 5. 1836. We received a great many answers; some dried specimens ; a number of drawings and engravings, either lent or given; and one living plant. The result of the whole, as far as it is worth making public, is as follows:- No species of willow is indigenous to St. Helena; but about 1810, or before, when General Beatson was governor there, he, being fond of planting, had a great many forest trees and shrubs introduced from Britain; and though, as appears by the St. Helena Gazette for 1811-12, he had the greatest difficulty in preserving his plantations from the numerous goats which abounded in the island, yet several of the trees survived, and attained a timber-like size. Among these was the tree of Sàlix babylónica, which has since been called Napoleon's willow. This tree grew among other trees, on the side of a valley near a spring; and, having attracted the notice of Napoleon, he had a seat placed under it, and used to go and sit there very frequently, and have water brought to him from the adjoining fountain. About the time of Napoleon's death, in 1821, a storm, it is said, shattered the willow in pieces; and, after the interment of the emperor, Madame Bertrand planted several cuttings of this tree on the outside of the railing which surrounds the grave; and placed within it, on the stone, several flower-pots with heartsease and forget-me-not. In 1828, we are informed, the willows were found in a dying state; and twenty-eight young ones were, in consequence, placed near the tomb, which was at that time surrounded with a profusion of scarlet-blossomed pelargoniums. A correspondent, who was at St. Helena in 1834, says one of the willows was then in a flourishing condition; but another, who was there in 1835, describes it as going fast to decay, owing to the number of pieces carried away by visitors. In what year a cutting from this willow was brought to England for the first time we have not been able to ascertain; but it appears probable that it may have been in the year 1823, and that one of the oldest plants is that in the garden of the Roebuck tavern on Richmond Hill, which, as it appears by the inscription on a white marble tablet affixed to it, was taken from the tree in that year. Since that period, it has become fashionable to possess a plant of the true Napoleon's willow; and, in consequence, a great many cuttings have been imported, and a number of plants sold by the London nurserymen. There are now trees of it in a great many places. There is a handsome small one in the Horticultural Society's Garden; one at Kew; several at Messrs. Loddiges's; some in the Twickenham Botanic Garden; one in the garden of Captain Stevens, Beaumont Square, Mile End; one in the garden of Mr. Knight, at Canonbury Place, Islington, brought over in 1824; one in the garden of No. 2. Lee Place, Lewisham, Kent; one in the garden of No. 1. Porchester Terrace; one in the garden of S. C. Hall, Esq., Elm Grove, Kensington Gravel Pits; one, a very flourishing and large tree, in the garden of Mrs. Lawrence, Drayton Green; one at Clayton Priory, near Brighton; one at Allesley Rectory, near Coventry; several at Chatsworth; and there are various others in the neighbourhood of London, and in different parts of the country. In ornamental plantations, the weeping willow has the most harmonious effect when introduced among trees of shapes as unusual as its own; partly of the same kind, as the weeping birch, and partly of contrasted forms, as the Lombardy poplar; and the effect of these three trees is always good when accompanied by water, either in a lake, as in fig. 1305., or in a stream and waterfall, as in fig. 1306. Both these views are of scenery in the park at Monza. (See Encyc. of Gard., ed. 1835, p. 36.) Fig. 1037. is an example of the use of trees having drooping branches, and others having vertical branches, such as the Lombardy poplar, in contrasting with and harmonising horizontal lines. (See Gard. Mag., vol. i. p. 117.) For further remarks on the use of the

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