Salix babylonica

Salix babylonica is a medium- to large-sized deciduous tree, growing up to tall. It grows rapidly, but has a short lifespan, between 40 and 75 years. The shoots are yellowish-brown, with small buds. The leaves are alternate and spirally arranged, narrow, light green, long and broad, with finely serrate margins and long acuminate tips; they turn a gold-yellow in autumn. The flowers are arranged in catkins produced early in the spring; it is dioecious, with the male and female catkins on separate trees. File:Saule pleureur chaton.jpg|Male flowers of Salix babylonica Image:Willow Salix babylonica.jpg|Pendulous branchlets of Salix babylonica File:Salix babylonica2.jpg|Bark of Salix babylonica File:SalixBabylonicaLeaf.jpg|Leaves of Salix babylonica File:Salso-chorão em Bagé-RS 04.jpg|In Brazil == Taxonomy ==

Salix babylonica was described and named scientifically by Carl Linnaeus in 1736, who knew the species as the pendulous-branched ("weeping") variant then recently introduced into the Clifford garden in Hartekamp in The Netherlands. A horticultural variant with twisted twigs and trunk, the corkscrew willow (S. matsudana var. tortuosa), is widely planted. == Cultivation ==

'', by Claude Monet (1918) Salix babylonica, especially its pendulous-branched ("weeping") form, has been introduced into many other areas, including Europe and the southeastern United States, but beyond China, it has not generally been as successfully cultivated as some of its hybrid derivatives, being sensitive to late-spring frosts. In the more humid climates of much of Europe and eastern North America, it is susceptible to a canker disease, willow anthracnose (Marssonina salicicola), which makes infected trees very short-lived and unsightly. Cultivars Salix babylonica (Babylon willow) has many cultivars, including: • 'Babylon' (synonym: 'Napoleon') is the most widely grown cultivar of S. babylonica, with its typical weeping branches. • 'Crispa' (synonym: 'Annularis') is a mutant of 'Babylon', with spirally curled leaves. Various cultivars of Salix matsudana (Chinese willow) are now often included within Salix babylonica, treated more broadly, including: • 'Pendula' is a weeping tree, with a silvery shine, hardier, and more disease resistant. • 'Tortuosa' is an upright tree with twisted and contorted branches, marketed as corkscrew willow. Other weeping willow cultivars are derived from interspecific Salix hybrids, including S. babylonica in their parentage. The most widely grown weeping willow cultivar is Salix × sepulcralis 'Chrysocoma', with bright yellowish branchlets. == Uses ==

Peking willow is a popular ornamental tree in northern China, and is also grown for wood production and shelterbelts there, being particularly important around the oases of the Gobi Desert, protecting agricultural land from desert winds. Weeping willow tea has been reported successfully used for rooting a wide variety of plants including but not limited to; goji, Himalayan raspberry, limequat, honeyberry, lemon verbena. ==Origin==

The epithet babylonica in this Chinese species' scientific name (S. babylonica), as well as the related common names "Babylon willow" or "Babylon weeping willow", derive from a misunderstanding by Linnaeus that this willow was the tree described in the Bible in the opening of Psalm 137 (here in Latin and English translations): • From the Clementine Vulgate (Latin, 1592): ::Super flumina Babylonis illic sedimus et flevimus, cum recordaremur Sion. :::In salicibus in medio ejus suspendimus organa nostra.... :Here, "salicibus" is the dative plural of the Latin noun salix, the willows, used by Linnaeus as the name for the willow genus Salix. • From the King James Version (English, 1611): ::By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion. :::We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. • From the Revised Standard Version (English, 1952): ::By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion :::On the willows there we hung up our lyres.... Despite these Biblical references to "willows", whether in Latin or English, the trees growing in Babylon along the Euphrates River in ancient Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) and named gharab in early Hebrew, are not willows (Salix) in either the modern or the classical sense, but the Euphrates poplar (Populus euphratica), with willow-like leaves on long, drooping shoots, in the related genus Populus. Both Populus and Salix are in the plant family Salicaceae, the willow family. These Babylonian trees are correctly called poplars, not willows, in the New International Version of the Bible (English, 1978): ::By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion :::There on the poplars we hung our harps. == Explanatory notes ==