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<h3>THE SPRINGING TREE: WILLOWS</h3> Mrs. Dyson The willow is one of the greatest of Mother Nature’s puzzles. It will give you years of pleasure before you have fully found out all its secrets. What is the puzzle? Perhaps you say, We all know a willow. Do you? Let us see how much you know. It is a weeping tree; its branches and leaves drop to the ground. That is true sometimes, not always. It grows by the water side. Neither is that always true. In early spring it has buds like soft pussy-cats, which you love to gather, and stroke against your faces, and in summer it has long narrow leaves. Yes, but if you look at all the pussy-cats you can find, you will see that they are very different from one another. The willow has two kinds of tails growing on different trees. One tree has flowers made of stamens, another tree[204] has flowers containing seed-bags, and even of these two kinds you will find many different sorts. Then if you will look at the same trees when the leaves come out, you will perhaps be surprised to see that they have not all leaves of the same sort. Some are long, narrow and pointed, but some are broad and rounded; some are white and silky, some are crumpled and downy. Now you see what is the great puzzle. When you see a tree with a long narrow leaf like a sword, you are sure at once it is a willow. The willow gives its name to this shape; for when we see other plants with leaves of this pattern, we always call them willow-leaves. The flowers of all the willows are very much alike. They all grow on tails, true pussy-cats’ tails, so soft and silky are they. But they are the tails of angry pussy-cats, for they stand up straight and stiff and thick; they do not hang down wagging and waving in a good-tempered way. The flowers are soft silky scales, fastened closely together on the stalk. On the tails of one tree, under each scale, there are two, three or five slender stamens,[205] each with a double yellow head and between these and the stem there is a little honey-bag. Under the scales of another tree’s tails there are beautiful silken seed-bags, shaped like pears, the pointed end just divided into two sticky horns. When the seeds are ripe, these lovely silk bags split open at the point, and the two horns curl back in a beautiful way, like two doors opening to make way for the crowd of tiny seeds, each one with a great plume of whitest silk, which tries to spread out to the sun and fresh air. The opening seed-bags of all the willows are a charming sight. What is all this silk for? To keep the seeds warm? Yes, and also to float them through the air to a place where they may take root and grow. You must look out for them early in the year, in late spring and early summer, long before other seeds are ripe. You will find that the birds are also on the lookout,—for food you suppose? No, they are building their nests, and they want something nice and soft with which to line them and make a comfortable bed for the eggs and the little birds; and what could they have[206] better than this yellow silk? The thistledown is all destroyed by the winter rains and there is nothing else ready yet. The willow is the earliest tree, except the hazel, to say that spring is coming. It begins to get ready in the autumn. Then the buds swell and often burst, so that you can see the tufts of white silk peeping out as if the flowers were in such a hurry they could not wait till the spring. All the winter they are growing, but you are so busy skating and snow balling whenever you go out that you have no time to watch them, and are quite surprised at the first glimpse of the soft pussy-cats in the spring. At first only the silky scales show, but soon after the golden heads or the funny two-horned bottles hang out and the fruit is ripe by the time other trees have opened their flowers. Some people say there are two hundred different kinds of willow trees but others think this is making too much of slight differences. There are about fifteen kinds which are so very different from one another that you will easily be able to discover them. [207] You already know well, four kinds of willow. Two of them are large trees; one of these is always found by the water-side bending over the still slow streams. It is called the white willow because its leaves are covered on both sides with soft white silk. The other is the willow tree which grows most frequently in our gardens and by the road side. Its leaves are like those of the white willow in shape, but on the upper side they are bright green; with no silky covering. This is called the crack willow, because its branches crack and break at the joints so easily. Give them just a little blow and they snap at once. These are the only kinds of willow that grow into large trees. They are generally very crooked trees; their trunks split and bend and sometimes when near a stream they stretch over it as if they wanted to make a bridge across. The other two willows that you know well are large shrubs or little trees not much taller than a man. One of them bears very silky catkins, and its leaves are always silky, quite white on the under side. This willow has[208] long, slender arms like fairies’ wands. Cinderella’s godmother may have used one of them. This is the osier of which we make our baskets. If you try to break off one of these long arms, you may tug and tug away, but all in vain, they are so tough; and as your hand slips there comes off into it a long roll of bark, leaving the branch smooth and white. You can bend these slender shoots as much as you like and still they will not snap, and so they are just what we want for weaving into light baskets. The other shrub or little tree is perhaps the willow that you know best in the spring. It grows in the hedge everywhere and is called the goat willow or sallow. It has purplish brown branches and from it you probably gather your first pussy-cats. It flowers with the snowdrop, even while it is yet winter, in cold February or March. The first warm sunshine is better than any fairy’s wand for it turns these flowers into gold. Then the bees rejoice; the food they have had in their hives during the winter is nearly done, and other flowers have scarcely dared to think of[209] opening yet. But the bees know the secrets of the flowers and they are quite aware of the wee honey bag hidden in every flower of that thick tail. So you see this tree seems so full of life and joy, it grows so fast, and is so willing and obliging, that we call it by the name willow, which means the “springing” tree. <hr class="chap" />  [210] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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