Salix babylonica L.

Used for weaving wicker baskets, timber, and reforestation.

The branches are cut as fodder for cattle. The wood of the weeping willow is suitable for making cricket bats. (Parker, l.c.).

Trees to 18 m tall; bark grayish black, irregularly furrowed, Branchlets pendulous, brownish yellow, brownish, or slightly purple, slender, glabrous. Buds linear, apex acute. Stipules lanceolate or ovate-orbicular, those of shoots obliquely lanceolate; petiole (3-)5-10 mm; leaf blade narrowly lanceolate or linear-lanceolate, 9-16 × 0.5-1.5 cm, abaxially light green, adaxially green, both surfaces glabrous or slightly pilose, base cuneate, margin serrate, apex long acuminate. Male catkin 1.5-2(-3) cm; peduncle short; bracts lanceolate, abaxially pilose. Male flower: glands 2; stamens 2, ca. as long as to longer than bracts, ± long pubescent at base; anthers reddish yellow. Female catkin 2-3(-6) cm, with 3 or 4 leaves on peduncle; bracts lanceolate, 1.8-2(-2.5) mm, abaxially pilose. Female flower: gland adaxial; ovary ellipsoid, glabrous or minutely pubescent proximally, sessile or subsessile; style short; stigma 2-4-parted. Capsule slightly greenish brown, 3-4 mm. Fl. Mar-Apr, fr. Apr-May. 2n = 63, 72, 76.

Tree up to 40 m tall. Branches long, drooping; bark deeply fishered, grayish. Leaf stipulate, stipules obliquely lanceolate or ovate, toothed or subulate. Petiole 3-5(10) mm long. Lamina 8-16 x 0.8-1.5 cm., narrowly elliptic to linear lanceolate, serrulate, acuminate, glabrous or with sparse adpressed hairs. Catkins appearing before or with leaves, borne or short leafy stalks. Male catkin up to 2.5 cm long. Bracts ovate lanceolate, slightly hairy below. Stamens 2, free, hairy at the base. Female catkin up to 5 cm long. Flowers with one oblong gland, longer than stipe. Ovary subsessile, ovoid, glabrous, style short, stigma 2-4 parted. Capsule 3-4 mm.

Native of China; cultivated in temperate regions. A specimen of Hamilton's (Narainhetty, Nepal), though of poor quality, is very probably S. babylonica.

Distribution: Native country uncertain, probably China, widely planted.

1400-3650 m

Fl. Per.: February-March.

Widespread throughout China [Asia, Europe]