Weeping Willow

Where it grows

Despite its Linnaean name suggesting Babylon, the true weeping willow is native to dry areas of northern China and was traded west along the Silk Road. It has been planted ornamentally beside ponds, rivers, and lakes throughout the temperate world. It needs abundant water and tolerates seasonal flooding.

How to recognise it

The unmistakable silhouette is one of long, slender, drooping branches that hang almost vertically from a broad spreading crown, often dipping into the water below. The narrow lance-shaped leaves are bright green above, paler beneath, fluttering loosely at the slightest breeze. Spring catkins are small and greenish-yellow.

Uses

Weeping willow is grown almost entirely as an ornamental and as a soil-binder beside watercourses. The flexible young stems are used in basketry, and salicylic acid extracted from willow bark gave us aspirin. The closely related cricket-bat willow (Salix alba var. caerulea) supplies the wood for every cricket bat used in professional play.

In culture

Across Chinese poetry the willow symbolises parting and longing, while in Europe weeping willow has been a graveyard tree associated with mourning.